I Once Loved a Sailor
by KristieM
Summary: An AU taking place during what would have been the end of the eleventh season, and assuming that Harm and Mac were sent to London and San Diego, respectively.
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: Things I do not own- JAG and all its characters; 'Come Take a Trip in My Airship'; Coca-Cola; CVS; Baby Magic; McDonalds; Enterprise or Budget car rentals, and any other proper nouns you may come across. Things I have never done- traveled to Italy; been involved in the military; been involved in the CIA; been pregnant; studied law; studied medicine (although I will start that in January); spoken Italian; had any encounters with the process of adoption; planned or attended a military funeral. What I am getting at here is that I made all this up. I'm not an expert in anything I wrote about. It all came from my imagination unless otherwise noted.

Dedications: I'm a horrible fanfic fan- I very rarely review. But I love you all, your work is incredible. I'm just lazy I guess big smiles. So I'm dedicating this to you guys. Cece, Mkim, Doc, Karen, Ann, Pixie, the gals of McRose, CLK, Carrie, Kay, Daenar, Teacup, Timer, TR, Michi and Carol, Jackie, Valerie, Aerogirl, Sheri, Tracey, Mariposa, Vivienne, Soleil, Manette, LRM, and so many more. I could seriously go on all night, so if you post on the HB or Jagnik board, or at consider yourself included in this dedication. You are all awesome. Thanks for the entertainment.

Special thanks: Big thank you to Doc for her beta reading. Seriously folks, if it weren't for her, you wouldn't have even been able to read this. Typos are my specialty.

Author's notes: Ok, so I started writing this last year, right after JAG: San Diego (my all time LEAST favorite episode) aired. Everyone was freaking out about the idea of an 11th season in California with Mac (and Vukovic), and Harm being sent to London. I posted on the HB an idea that maybe Harm was called away b/c of the war, and that we'd see a long distance relationship between the two. Then I thought, hey, that'd make a great fanfic. Thus began a year and a half long struggle for me to finish my very first fanfiction. What began as a small fluff story became a 325kb monster, and ironically ended up nothing like the idea with which I started. But I'm finally done (yay!) and ready to share it with ya'll. A warning, FWFS had not aired when I started this, so it never happened, and I pretty much made up Harm and Mac's new duty stations. Oh, and PS, I hated what the PTB did to Mattie and Tom. I thought it was rather cruel; everything Tom did to get well for his daughter, including giving her up to someone else so he could get help, just to have him fail like he did. And how horrible for Mattie... So in my story, the accident never happened and Tom and Mattie are living together happily in Blacksburg. Ok, now, on with the show.

PROLOGUE

May 20, 2006  
10:15 EST

SpongeBob and Patrick were at it again. Jimmy Roberts was giggling madly at the antics of the goofy sea creatures. His big brother AJ was not quite so absorbed in the cartoon. He had bigger things on his mind. Grown-up things that an almost three year old just wouldn't understand.

The boys were side by side on the floor of the family room; Jimmy lying on his back with his feet pointed towards the TV, and AJ sitting Indian style, shoulders slumped and arms crossed. His daddy had told him to watch for Carrie and to keep Jimmy from waking the napping toddlers in the nursery upstairs. AJ knew what was really going on though. He may have only just turned seven, but he wasn't stupid. He knew that Mommy was crying again and Daddy just didn't want the boys to see. He also knew that he didn't want to stay with Carrie when his parents left. He wanted to go with them.

It wasn't that he didn't like Carrie. She was the best babysitter ever. Not like Stinky Stacy, a name AJ would never, ever use out loud again after the last time his mom heard him mumbling it. But it was true, she smelled like…like his mom's purse did that one time he spilled a bottle of perfume in it trying to find some gum. Luckily it was just her "Dime Store stuff"…whatever that meant. Besides, Stacy was always shushing AJ and his little brother because she was soo busy on the phone with her boyfriend...or with someone else talking about her boyfriend. Carrie was different though. She liked to play Jedi Knights and she knew all about the boys' favorite cartoons and video games. And when the babies were awake, she never ignored the older two; she always made time for everyone.

But none of that mattered right now. Carrie or Stacy, it made no difference to AJ. He wasn't staying. All he had to do was convince his parents that he was old enough to go with them. After all, his best friend from school, Sam, went to his grandpa's funeral last year, and he wasn't even six then. He remembered asking Sam about it the next day, when the boy had explained his absence from school.

"When someone dies and goes to heaven, you have them a funeral," Sam explained matter-of-factly. "It's so the people who love them can tell them goodbye."

AJ had known as soon as his parents explained three days ago what was going on, that he wanted to go to the funeral with them. He wanted to tell them right then and there, but Mommy was sitting on his bed crying and Daddy was busy trying to make her feel better. So when they brought up Carrie and babysitting, the usually outspoken and stubborn AJ kept quiet. Each of his parents kissed him goodnight then and that was the end of it.

The next two days were filled with "Keep your brother busy, AJ" and "Please don't wake Nicki and Nate, AJ, Mommy needs them to sleep right now." Mommy was constantly on the phone, and when Daddy wasn't at work, he'd be on the phone or in his office with Mommy where they spoke in quiet voices. Normally AJ would have resented the lack of attention, but he needed to make sure Mommy and Daddy knew he was ready for grownup stuff. So AJ did as his mom told him. He kept Jimmy from waking his baby brother and sister, he did his spelling homework without his dad having to ask four times, he cleaned up after not only himself, but also the twins and his younger brother, all the while hoping his parents would pick up on his new, improved behavior.

AJ glanced over at Jimmy. The younger boy was now lying on his stomach, propped up on his elbows with his little hands bracing his face on either side, still engrossed in the 'nautical nonsense' on T.V. Taking a deep breath, AJ stood up, straightened his back and puffed his chest out a little. Looking for all the world like a miniature marine, he headed for the stairs.

He took the first two or three steps like a little soldier. By the time he was half way up, however, his nervousness was starting to get the better of him. The problem went beyond just trying to get his parents to agree with him. The closer he got to the top of the stairs, the more he began to doubt himself. Did he really want to go? AJ knew what death meant. He knew that once you die, you're gone forever. He realized he would probably cry…in front of other people no less. During the impossibly long journey to his parent's room at the end of the hallway, AJ thought really hard about his decision. He dragged his fingers along the grooves in the wall opposite the banister. His 'ramrod straight' spine became more hunched, his feet dragging more and more. Three more steps...two more...one...

AJ walked past the nursery and one of the twins sighed. Suddenly he almost envied his sister and brothers. They were too little to understand what was going on. To them, this was just another day. Jimmy probably wouldn't even remember any of this. Just like AJ didn't remember much of anything about the time when his baby sister Sarah had died. But he would remember this for a long time, probably forever and ever.

Then he was there. AJ stood in the doorway of his parent's room, all his bravado now gone. He looked like the seven-year old little boy that he was. Leaning on the doorframe, he rolled his shoulder against it, rocking back and forth and scuffing his toes on the wood floor. He looked from one parent to the other but they had yet to notice him. Daddy was straightening his uniform in front of the mirror on the dresser while Mommy sat on the bed staring at the stocking in her hand, but making no attempt to put it on. It was unnaturally quiet in the room and AJ wondered how it was possible that they hadn't heard him at the door.

He looked down at his feet and asked himself one last time if he really wanted to do this. He could just be a little kid with his brothers and Nicki. He could stay home and play Chutes and Ladders with Carrie and Jimmy and watch 'Finding Nemo' when the twins woke up from their afternoon nap. He could pretend it was just another day...

"Hey buddy, is Carrie here?"

AJ looked up. His mom and dad were looking his way now with equal amounts of curiosity and concern. He made up his mind.

"I wanna go with you today," AJ blurted out, his voice not sounding nearly as strong as when he had practiced it in his head.

"Oh, AJ," his mom began, "…baby, I don't think..." she looked to his dad for help. Before Daddy could pick up where his mom left off, which AJ could tell was headed towards a definite 'no', AJ interrupted. He had a speech planned in his head for this moment. He knew that the immediate answer would not be in his favor. He was going to talk about being the oldest of four, and about how he wasn't a baby anymore. If need be, he'd bring up how responsible he'd been these last couple of days. But when he looked to his dad and opened his mouth, what came out, was from his heart instead of his head.

"Dad, I havta! I really…" his lower lip started quivering and he bit it hard to make it stop. If he couldn't get through this without crying like a baby, Mom would never let him go. He squared his shoulders, but it still came out as almost a whisper when he announced, "I wanna say goodbye to Uncle AJ."

His mom's eyes quickly filled with tears and she glanced back down at her hands before looking up at his dad. AJ started to panic a little. He didn't mean to make Mom cry! He looked to his dad, then back to his mom and opened his mouth again, this time with an apology on the tip of his tongue. It died away when his parents' eyes met. He'd seen that look before; it meant they were talking to each other without talking. He waited, holding his breath, and started counting in his head. He only had to go as high as four before the eye contact broke and Dad started his way, lightly stroking his mom's hair as he passed her.

"Come on, buddy, let's go find your suit." 

TBC


	2. Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

May 20, 2006  
10:55 EST

"-nothing on me, cause I'm five foot two I wanna dance with you and I'm sophisticated fun, I eat filet m-"  
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"-so don't forget to log on to www dot star949 dot com to listen to us where ever you are, home or of-"  
"-lead me to where you are, others who broke my heart, they were like northern stars pointing me on m-"  
"-eet home Alabama, where the skies are so blue, sweet home Alabama, Lord I'm coming home to you-"

Captain Harmon Rabb Jr. just let the radio scan through the stations, listening to, but not really hearing endless songs and advertisements. He wasn't really sure how many times he'd gone past each station, although he was sure he'd heard 'Sweet Home Alabama' on at least four of them, but somehow, the lack of something constant made him feel slightly better. If he were to stop on one particular song or story, his mind would start to wander. It would just be a matter of minutes before he was dwelling on why he was back in Washington. And he didn't want to think about it anymore. He'd thought of nothing but that the entire flight from Heathrow and now he needed to occupy his mind with something else for a while. Soon enough he would be with friends and family and then it would be about AJ Chegwidden; talking about and sharing memories of him, comforting one another, crying on each other's shoulders. Soon enough, Harm would have to bury his friend and mentor.

He propped his elbow on the window, and leaning his head on his fist, he sighed heavily in frustration. D.C. traffic at it's best. It was lousy when he lived here, it was lousy when he was here six weeks ago for his godson's birthday, and it was worse than lousy today. He'd been in the same spot, behind the same smoking Mazda for 25 minutes. He wasn't sure which was worse, the nine hours spent on a plane that was most certainly not made for his six foot plus frame, or the two door Neon that the rental place at the airport insisted was the only thing they would have available for the rest of the morning. Harm's poor body was beginning to reject the idea of being folded up so many times, in so many different positions.

He was trying to keep his cool, he really was, but the past couple of hours…scratch that, the past couple of weeks…had left his nerve ends frayed to practically nothing. He needed to be at Dulles 10 minutes ago, which shouldn't have been a problem. They'd had this all planned out for days now. He had given himself plenty of time to disembark his plane at Baltimore-Washington International, go through customs, get his bags, check a rental car out, and make it to Dulles with half an hour to spare. But of course, the best laid plans…

The line at Budget Rent-a-Car was as ridiculously long as it was slow. And of course, when he finally made it to the counter he was told that he would have to wait until a car was checked back in.

"It should only be half an hour or so Mr. Babb," the all too perky clerk had informed him, slapping an oversized wad of chewing gum around in her mouth. Oh sure, not a big deal, because he had nothing better to do for 30 minutes.

"It's Rabb. And I really don't have half an hour…" he paused to check her name tag, "Molly." He flashed her a smile and asked if there wasn't anything else she could possibly do, trying to be charming as possible. After all, you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar. All he wanted to do was to get to Dulles, then to the hotel. His body was begging for a hot shower and a big bed to stretch out on, even if he could only spare twenty minutes.

Harm's good-natured attitude and gorgeous smile paid off when Molly helped him find a car through Enterprise, instead. He'd hoped it didn't get her into trouble with her company, but he would be forever grateful to the young girl for her help. Even if it was a Neon, and even if his body already felt like a pretzel, it was still a car. Anyway, he didn't plan on being in it for very long...

That seemed like days ago to the now crippled navy captain. To top it all off, thanks to the complementary coffee Budget offered while he was waiting for a car, he now desperately needed to relieve himself. He swore that if the traffic didn't let up soon, he was going to get out and walk, damn the car.

Harm glanced down at the radio when it began pumping out some obnoxious noise that some poor, misled soul somewhere probably thought was music. It wasn't really necessary any longer to keep his mind occupied. The pains in his legs, back and bladder were doing a fine job of that. Taking out some of his frustration on the on/off switch, he began to violently jab at it. It took four tries before he hit his mark. Feeling not the least bit better, Harm now had a throbbing finger to add to his growing list of aches.

'I really can't take much more of this. A person can only handle so much before they blow, and I swear if this traffic doesn't move soon-.' The ringing of his cell phone interrupted Harm's internal rant.

He picked it up and looked at the caller ID screen. Instantly, some of the anger melted from his body. A small smile graced his lips as he answered.

"How did you know I was about to commit some heinous crime due to stress and would probably need a good lawyer?" was said in lieu of 'hello'.

"Weeeell," Colonel Sarah McKenzie replied, "my plane has landed and deboarded, and you're not here. Since you had this planned down to the second and I know that you were supposed to arrive at Dulles 39 minutes ago, I figured you either, a) had a bad flight, or b) hit bad traffic."

"How about c) all of the above," Harm sighed into the phone.

"Back hurt?" she asked sympathetically, bringing the smile back to his face. Mac knew what a long ride on a commercial plane did to him. The first time he flew out to San Diego to visit her, about a month after their transfers, he had complained miserably about the lack of room for his legs, which in turn made his back ache relentlessly. She had wondered out loud how he could be fine in the cramped confines of the cockpit of an F14, but not in a 757 jet. He smiled his flyboy smile and asked incredulously, "How could someone not be comfortable in the cockpit of an F14?"

That had been such a wonderful week. It was good to see Lt. Mayfield and Lt. Graves again. The small blond reminded him of a cross between Bud and Harriet. Mac had totally agreed, admitting that sometimes when she was really missing JAG HQ, being around the young Lt. helped alleviate some of the homesickness.

He had joked that being around Lt. Vukovic should have the same effect, considering that he'd heard that the Lt. had the same penchant for trouble that a certain former Lt. Commander Rabb once did.

Mac had rolled her eyes, muttering words like 'cocky', 'arrogant', and 'reprehensible'. She then said that working with him around women, Lts. Graves and Mayfield in particular, was like working on the set of 'As the World Turns', or some equally mind numbing daytime soap. "I swear Harm, it's like I'm living in some teeny bopper television show that airs on The WB after the 'Gilmore Girls'." Taking in his weird look, she simply said, "Chloe's favorite show," before continuing. "There is constantly some sort of intense yet futile drama going on that I neither know about, nor want to know about. And anyway, where in my job description does it state that, on top of being a lawyer and a marine, I should be a...a babysitter for a bunch of wet-behind-the-ears, hormonally challenged-" He'd shut her up the only way he could think of.

It wasn't their first kiss. He remembered the other four vividly. From that night at Norfolk so many years ago to the morning he dropped her off at the airport a month earlier; the morning they were finally separated. However, in the weeks that followed, no mention was made of their spontaneous lip lock there in front of the security checkpoint at Dulles. In all of their conversations on the phone and online, never once was it spoken of. Oh he had wanted to, but a voice in his head interrupted him every time he'd even thought of bringing it up…a voice that reminded him that they were half a world apart right now. What was the point, other than to possibly upset her. Harm treasured whatever connection they could get away with too much to taint it with 'should haves' and 'what ifs'. He had assumed that she felt the same, as she was just as closed mouthed about it as he. At least he'd hoped that that was the reason; that she wanted to spare him the same grief he was determined to avoid imparting on her. He'd prayed it wasn't because she regretted it.

Standing there in front of the San Diego JAG offices a month later, as he sealed her mouth with his, giving into the urge to connect with her on that level again, he'd prayed even harder that that wasn't the case. If so, he was in a whole heap of trouble when he released her. However, when the kiss had finally ended, she simply smiled and said, "So maybe I don't give 'hormonally challenged' enough credit."

They spent the rest of the week within reaching distance of each other, trying to make up for the physical distance that had been forced upon them. There was always a hand in hers or on the small of her back. A casual arm around her shoulders, or hers around his waist usually led into a kiss or hug. However, both were hesitant to take anything to the bedroom, considering their current duty stations were on opposite sides of the world. Not ideal circumstances for a budding romance. Of course, that didn't stop them from making the most of the time they had together that week. They'd even taken a couple of days to visit with his parents in La Jolla, much to his mother's delirious delight.

The last night Harm was in town, they spent at Mac's place. There was talk of going out on the town, maybe dancing or to the beach. But both decided they wanted each other to themselves. Harm arrived at her place ready to cook a real meal, since he was sure, despite her assurances to the contrary, that she had been living off of fast food for the past month. During dinner, they teased and laughed, talking about nothing and everything. He'd missed being with her like that so much. They had just gotten back to that level in their relationship when she was transferred to California. Soon after, he was 'booted off the continent' as Sturgis so aptly put it.

After dinner, they took their drinks into the living room and settled in on the couch. As had become the norm in the past few days, Harm sat first and Mac immediately dropped herself practically in his lap. It was amazing to him how natural it felt to cuddle with Sarah Mackenzie. Hell, it amazed him that she knew how to cuddle. They sat in comfortable silence for a while, just enjoying each other's presence. Mac had the most adorable habit, in his opinion at least, of playing with his hands while they sat together. Sometimes he was pretty sure she didn't even realize what she was doing. He did though. It sent jolts of electricity up and down his arm every time she stroked his knuckles or laced their fingers together.

She was currently pressing his palm to hers, studying the difference in their sizes. She seemed so intent on her investigation that he was more than slightly startled when she suddenly jump-started their conversation.

"So, how do you like London so far?" she asked, never taking her eyes from their hands. "I mean, besides the fog and rain of course," she added with a smirk.

"You know, you'd think that living there wouldn't be much different from living here," he joked, bending his fingertips over her shorter ones before letting the digits slip to the side and lacing them through hers. "I mean, they speak the same language…theoretically at least." His wasn't an actual transfer as much as an extended TAD, working with young pilots, both American and British, training them in combat flying and ROE. Originally presented to him as a 10-month assignment, he was rather surprised that 14 months later, he was still in jolly ole England. Such is the unpredictable nature of war he supposed. Still, like he told Mac, it was fun to be around planes all day, even if he didn't go up as often as he'd like. He was surrounded by people who loved to fly just as much as he did. People with whom he could talk about planes for hours and they never got bored. And the excitement he saw in the faces of new recruits…it was absolutely priceless. Of course, being the one in charge instead of the one being chewed out wasn't so bad either.

"Sometimes though," he admitted to her, "I feel so incredibly old. I mean, some of these kids are half my age. They have fathers who I could have gone to high school with."

Giggling slightly, Mac responded, "I know how you feel. Despite my constant bitching when you first arrived, I really don't mind working with Vukovic, et al. It's fun to watch them learn the ropes. To see that glimmer in their eyes every time they get some new responsibility, or assignment. It was fun with Bud too." She sighed and leaned forward out of his embrace to pick up her glass of iced tea from the coffee table with the hand not currently incased in his. Setting it back down after taking a sip, she settled again with her back to his chest and continued. "But with Bud, there really wasn't much of an age difference. With this group there is an entire generation gap."

"OK, enough of this," Harm ordered with his best CO voice. "We're talking like we're old fogies. And we aren't. We are intelligent, exciting, desirable people." He proved his point by placing a kiss on the side of her neck, producing another giggle from Mac. One kiss became two, and before long, they were making out on the couch like, well, certainly not like old fogies.

When things suddenly became very intense, Harm stopped, pulled back and looked down at her face. Running his fingers across her brow and down over her slightly swollen lips, he sucked in a breath when she kissed his thumb. Apparently enjoying his reaction, she opened her mouth slightly and let the tip of her tongue caress it. Replacing his thumb with his lips, he pressed feather light kisses on each corner of her mouth, resulting in the most endearing smile he'd ever seen. Even through heavily lidded eyes, she must have understood the uncertainty she saw in his blue orbs. She would never know how perfect her answer to his unasked question was to him.

"I'm ready. Are you?"

There was no need for a verbal response from Harm. The look on his face as he took her hand and pulled her up and toward her bedroom was the only answer she needed.

Yeah, that had been a wonderful week leading to a year of outrageous phone bills, spontaneous visits, and conversations filled with past recriminations and future hopes. Harm had experienced more emotional ups and downs in the past thirteen months than in all of his forty years.

He wouldn't have traded those last thirteen months for anything

"Hey," her voice brought him back to the here and now. "Are you in uniform?"

"No," he answered, quickly looking down at himself. He was pretty sure he had changed before he left for Heathrow, but it was so long ago, and he was so tired, that he couldn't be sure until he glanced down at his jeans and t-shirt.

"Good," Mac sighed with relief, and if he wasn't imagining it, a small quiver in her voice. Now he was concerned.

"Why? What's wrong?" He sat up a little straighter and changed lanes to turn left into Dulles' short term parking garage. Traffic had started moving again right after his cell rang. He smiled, thinking that he had always known that she was his good luck charm.

"Nothing, nothing", she hurriedly assured him. "It's just that, well, if you're…we're in uniform then…it's just…."

"Mac, whatever it is you're trying to say can't be half as bad as what I could probably come up with on my own," especially given the last couple of weeks, he added silently before continuing out loud. "So why don't you put both of us out of our misery and just spit it out."

She chuckled a little then replied in an almost steady voice, "It's been a tough few days and I could just really use a hug sometime soon, ya know?"

"I'm looking for a spot now," he replied in a now somber tone. She needn't explain how badly she wanted to be held by him right now. He wanted to hold her just as desperately. "I have a hug on back order waiting just for you. Meet me at the baggage claim in ten. We're going straight to the hotel to shower and change. I told Bud and Harriet we would meet them at their place around twelve-thirty. I thought it might be good for us to spend some time with the kids before we go. We can ride together that way. I figured we will be with them all day and most of the night anyway. They've been carrying the brunt of all of this, so we should probably take over some of the load now that we're here. You know, help out with…whatever," his voice trailed off for just a split second before he continued. "Even if it's just with the kids, unless you don't feel up to it. Just let me know if you get too tired or start to feel bad. Or even if you just want to get away and go back to the hotel, just…."

"Harm!" He wasn't sure, but he thought he heard a slight smile in her voice when she finally put him out of his misery and cut off his embarrassing litany. "A hot shower sounds wonderful…of course we should probably share to conserve time." That time he was sure of the smile in her voice. "We do need to be at Bud and Harriet's pretty much all day and night and I would love to see AJ, Jimmy and the babies before we leave. If I get tired, I'll go lay down in the guest room or if I start to feel bad, I promise I'll let you know. Now take a deep breath, park the car and come get me outta here."

He was immediately both calmed and amazed at how the thought of seeing her, holding and touching her, made it so much easier to cope with everything that had been thrown at him…them…recently. It had been a month and a half since he'd hugged her and the last half of that separation had been pure torture. Six weeks was too long to be without her even under the best of circumstances. Hell, who was he kidding, six hours was too long.

"I love you, Sarah. I've missed you so much."

"Me too, Flyboy. Now, hurry that cute six up."

TBC


	3. Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

May 20, 2006  
13:00 EST

The service was beautiful. Isn't that what you say at a funeral to make the bereft feel better? Mac had heard it at least a dozen times today, so it must have been true. As beautiful as burying a loved one can be at least. Military funerals always were a spectacular sight, this one made all the more vivid against the vibrant blue sky, dotted occasionally with a few fluffy clouds, and lush spring green grass. All the men and woman in flawless uniform, the stunning array of flowers, deep reds and blues, bright whites, small splashes of pink and yellow. Harriet had been meticulous when picking which of the hundreds of arrangements that had been arriving at the funeral home would be accompanying them to Arlington that day. The bright, colorful display would seem almost lively and cheerful if it wasn't working as a backdrop for the object of everyone's attention at the moment…the flag draped coffin. So, she supposed she could see where people would think of the service as beautiful. It was nothing less than what AJ Chegwidden deserved.

It all actually elapsed more quickly than Mac would have expected. The admiral, being the humble person he was, asked for as simple a service as one could get by with when receiving full military honors. No one but Chaplain Tuner spoke. The only truly poignant moment happened right after everyone was seated. Little AJ, nearly breaking her heart, walked up to the casket and presented a perfect salute. He then turned and ran back toward the chairs. Instead of his own seat however, he hoisted himself up onto his Aunt Mac's lap, where he remained, quiet and somber, through the rest of the service…the beautiful service that was now over.

Looking around from her seat, with her godson still perched on her knees, she took note that the last of the mourners were starting to gather themselves to leave. Jennifer Coates and Mike Roberts were talking with Varese and Sturgis Turner. Jen's eyes were practically swollen shut. The young petty officer always did wear her heart on her sleeve. Jason Tiner was telling Victor Galindez all about being the newest lawyer at JAG and the difficulties of having a Marine as your CO, giving the gunny a reason to smile despite the sadness in the eyes of both men. Mac cringed when she looked beyond the men and noticed General Creswell standing right out of Tiner's line of sight. He was not, however, out of earshot. She also noticed that Gunny saw this as well, but made no move to shut Tiner up. In fact, he seemed to be thoroughly enjoying watching his friend continue to put his foot in his mouth.  
'Boy', thought Mac, 'poor Tiner's going to be tasting shoe leather for a week…his and the General's.'

She scanned the crowd until she found Harm discussing something with Bud and Harriet. Mac was glad they hadn't called her over to join them. She was more than happy to simply sit with Little AJ while his young mind processed all that he had seen and heard today. Harm would fill her in later on what was discussed in her absence. Occasionally, Harriet would glance their way, ever the concerned mother, to make sure her son was still handling things okay. Mac was somewhat amused to notice that Harm was doing the exact same thing, only his eyes focused on her, not the seven year old in her lap. She would give him a curve of her lips and a slight nod and he would look mildly embarrassed that he had been caught, again. Then his attention, and concern, would be redirected to the Roberts.

It had fallen upon Bud and Harriet to take care of all the unpleasantness that follows in the wake of death. There was no blood family left. It was just the four of them, and with Harm and Mac being so far away, it was the Roberts that had done most of the dirty work; the funeral arrangements, estate issues, transportation of the…body. Mac's eyes watered for the hundredth time that day, thinking about the admiral that way. The body….

They really didn't know much about what had happened in Italy. Harm had been on the phone with a number of government agencies, both American and Italian, but couldn't get anything but the official word. AJ Chegwidden, his daughter Francesca, and another man, were coming out of a restaurant where witnesses say they had just dined together, when a car bomb nearby blew, killing all three instantly. Italian officials reported it as a random act of violence. Proof that no one was immune to terrorism. Francesca was buried next to her mother in Marcella's hometown in Italy, while AJ was brought back to the states for burial at Arlington.

What really broke the marine's heart was that none of them DID know anything. The last year was so crazy, with so many changes to everyone's lives, neither she, Harm, nor the Roberts had heard all that much from their former CO. Little AJ had shown them the birthday card that he got in the mail from his uncle when she and Harm were down a few weeks ago. Harriet had said that big AJ must be busy since they hadn't seen him since the twins were born. The young boy had been excited to receive mail addressed to him personally, and thrilled beyond words that the mail came from Uncle AJ.

Watching Harriet and Bud with Harm now, Mac could see the weariness on their faces. She felt immense guilt that she and Harm could not have been there sooner. It helped though, that they had both been granted ten days leave. At least now they could pick up some of the slack. While Harm had already arranged to meet with some people to try to learn more about what happened in Italy, Mac had plans to spend time with Harriet and her godchildren. Bud had told them when they arrived at the Roberts' house that day how little AJ had been such a wonderful help the past few days and both Harm and Mac made a point to thank the boy for being there for his parents when they couldn't. But Mac knew that the help of a seven-year old only went so far. She was there now, and she was determined to let Bud and Harriet get some rest.

Sighing, Mac faced the actuality that no one would get much rest anytime soon. The funeral was wrapping up, and then it was back to the Roberts' where there would be an over abundance of both food and melancholy. Just the thought of it made Mac's head and stomach ache. All she really wanted to do was curl up in bed with Harm and forget all of this for the rest of the time they had together.

Unfortunately, Bud had informed them before they left for the funeral that there would be a lawyer coming by later that evening, once everyone else had gone, representing the firm that would be handling AJ and Francesca's estates. Marcia Crosby had called Bud the day before and told him she wanted to meet with the four of them. For what, Mac had no clue. She could only assume they were mentioned in AJ's will in some way or another. It was assumed that the largest part of AJ's financial and personal effects were suppose to go to Francesca in the event of his death. Mac knew that most of that would now probably be put up for auction or given to charity.

The shifting in her lap pulled Mac's attention back to the fact that there was a child still silently seated there. Smoothing his hair, she asked if he wanted down.

"Aunt Mac?" AJ settled more securely in her arms, a silent answer to her question.

"Yeah sweetie."

"If Uncle AJ is in Heaven now, will he get to meet Sarah?"

The tears already pooled in Mac's eyes threatened to fall, but crying would upset her godson, and she was not about to do that. She sighed before answering, "Yes, I guess he will."

"Good," he replied with a slight nod of his head, "I worry sometimes that there isn't anyone in Heaven to look out for Sarah like I was suppose to. Ya know," AJ turned some so that he could face his godmother, "like a big brother does. Now she'll have her Uncle AJ. And now she'll have someone to tell her all about us. I've thought about that too. Now Uncle AJ can tell her all about Mom and Dad and you and Uncle Harm…and me and Jimmy and the babies. She should know about her family, don'cha think?"

Mac sniffed a little and smiled warmly at the little boy. "Yeah, I do buddy. And I'm sure that your uncle will take wonderful care of Sarah and tell her all kinds of stories about you and me and everyone else. I don't think either of them will ever be lonely," she had to swallow back a sob at the end. It was hard enough to be here right now, doing this. Bringing up baby Sarah was like salt in a currently rather raw wound. But if that's what it took to make AJ feel better, then she could suck it up, at least until she was alone…with Harm.

"I'm still gonna miss him a whole lot though," a couple of tears dropped from the seven-year-old's long lashes. He looked down with a loud, childlike sniff before wiping his nose on the sleeve of his navy blue jacket. Mac wiped his tears away with the crumpled, as yet unused tissue in her hand, then held it to the boys face and instructed him to blow. Hugging him close, she whispered into his hair, "I'm gonna miss him a whole lot too."

It was a few minutes later, with AJ still in her arms that she saw him. He was standing some yards away, shadowed by a few trees. Dressed in typical spook fashion, the trench coat and sunglasses were actually appropriate for the bright afternoon sun and windy spring weather. Clayton Webb removed a hand from his pocket and raised it in acknowledgment when he realized that he'd been spotted.

"AJ, can you go stand with Jen and Uncle Mikey for just a minute"

Watching to make sure he made it to his destination without sidetracking himself with some kind of beetle, or frog, or any of the other hundreds of icky nature things that can grab a young boy's attention, she then turned and headed for the shadows where Clay was skulking, trying not to be noticed. She was sure, as she closed the remaining distance between them, that she was at least half of the reason for his demeanor. They hadn't talked in two years, but she was certain that he knew of her relationship with Harm. He was, after all, CIA.

"Sarah."

"Clay."

There was about a minute of awkward silence before Mac gave a watery chuckle. "This is ridiculous. Clay, you could have joined us for the service you know. No one was going to shoot you on sight."

"You sure about that?" he asked almost teasingly as his eyes flickered behind her shoulder to where she knew Harm was still talking to the Roberts.

"We're all adults Clay. And today isn't about us, it's about AJ. If anyone understands and honors that, it's Harm."

"I know that Sarah. I don't doubt Rabb's integrity." He shrugged and turned his head to look at some invisible object off to the left of them. "I just prefer to be somewhat removed from the situation. I deal better from the shadows, you more than anyone should know that," he looked back at her with a mischievous smirk before it fell away. "I really did respect him. More than anyone else I've ever known, with the possible exception of Mother."

Mac knew they were talking about AJ now and not Harm. "I know what you mean. The admiral seemed to earn reverence without even trying. People just couldn't help but admire him." She paused uncertainly and then asked, "How are you Clay, I mean really?"

Webb smiled at her concern. No wonder he fell in love with her once upon a time. "I'm good Sarah, really. I'm not doing so much fieldwork anymore, but that's okay. I've got other things in my life now..." he looked down at his feet, then around at their surroundings, anywhere but at Mac. "I, uh, I'm engaged. She's a professor at the university. Political Science. We met at one of Mother's boring cocktail parties. Who would have thought, I mean I hated those things, you remember. I am always trying to find a way out of them; I tried to get out of that one, but now that I'm more office and less field, I don't have as many excuses. I guess you could say it was fate, I mean had I been in the field, I would have had a 'prior commitment' and then I might never have met Holly…." He trailed off when he realized he was babbling like a nervous child. He finally looked up at Mac to find her grinning widely at him. He smiled back, and Mac found herself immensely relieved that they could finally just be happy for one another.

"Well, well, if it isn't Mr. Cloak and Dagger himself." Harm's voice shook both Mac and Clay from their own thoughts. He walked up to the duo, and with almost no hesitance, stuck his hand out to shake Webb's. "How are you Clay," he asked when the spy took his peace offering.

"Well, circumstances have been better, but it's good to see you Harm. How's London?"

"I'm not even going to ask how you know where I'm stationed. I probably don't want to know anyway." Harm's arm slipped around Mac's waist, his hand resting on her hip. It wasn't necessarily a possessive move, more of a show of unity. At least that's what Mac was going to tell herself. "It's good. Different, but interesting."

"Clay", Mac spoke up, "everyone is heading over to the Roberts' house, why don't you follow us. I'm sure Bud and Harriet would love to have you." She felt Harm stiffen almost imperceptibly beside her, but his face held a genuine, if guarded, smile and she was sure that he was confident enough in their relationship at this point to handle this situation gracefully.

"I don't think so Sarah," Clay answered uncomfortably, "I don't really belong there. That's for family and close friends. Not old CIA contacts," he tried to joke, but it fell flat.

"That's silly Webb. I personally think the admiral would be pissed if you didn't show. And the only thing worse than a pissed off ex-seal, is the ghost of a pissed off ex-seal." Harm knew his comment served its purpose in easing the tension when he felt Mac swat his shoulder.

"Come on Clay. For all his hemming and hawing, AJ had a soft spot for you," Mac cajoled him.

"Really. Huh, well try telling that to my deviated septum," Clay huffed with a wry smile, rubbing the bridge of his long ago broken nose. "Honestly, thank you for making me feel welcome, and for the invitation, but I'm on the clock right now." The shiftiness that usually accompanied a spy everywhere he or she went suddenly appeared in Clay's eyes. "I just wanted to stop by and pay my respects. I have a meeting in," he checked his watch and cringed, "…ten minutes ago. I have to leave." He hesitated before leaning in and kissing Mac lightly on the cheek. He then slapped Harm on the shoulder once and squeezed slightly before pulling back. "Take care of each other," and then he was walking away.

"Hey Clay," Mac called before he could get too far. He turned back and she said, "Congratulations. Be happy."

He smiled, his eyes flicking to Harm, then back to her. "You too. On both counts." With a mock two fingered salute, he turned and walked to his car.

Harm raised his arm from her hips and rubbed his hand up and down her back, slowly and softly. "He seems to be doing well," he observed, casting a glance at her face to gauge her emotional state of mind.

She watched Clay's back as he walked away. He held himself straight, with an air of confidence that had been sorely missing the last time she saw him. If she were honest, it had been missing since Paraguay. But it seemed to be back to full swing now. She felt a little place in her heart finally heal. Knowing that Clay was…well, Clay again brought her a sense of peace she hadn't even realize she was missing.

"Yeah," she replied, eyes still on Clay's retreating back, "he really does." She turned to Harm and impulsively placed a kiss on his lips, "Let's get outta here. I promised AJ we'd watch him ride his new bike." Hand in hand, they headed back to the car.

Everyone was gone by the time they passed by the burial site. He had told Bud and Harriet that they would meet them back at the car. As one, they stopped in front of the casket. It was up on the lift, waiting to be lowered into the ground by the cemetery workers after the grieving friends and family had departed. No words were spoken as Mac and Harm lost themselves in private memories of the man that had such an impacted on both their lives. Mac felt the tears that she had been suppressing earlier for the sake of her godson spill over her lashes and drip down over her nose. She tasted the saltiness on her lips as she pressed them together to keep from breaking the respectful silence surrounding them. Harm's hand let go of hers a split second before his arm wrapped around her, pulling her to him tightly.

"He would have been happy for us," he whispered in a raspy voice, his face so close to her ear she could feel his tears as his wet nose nuzzled her temple.

There, in the middle of Arlington National Cemetery, with only each other as witnesses, Sarah Mackenzie and Harmon Rabb did what they hadn't allowed themselves to do yet. Not during any of the numerous phone calls made since hearing about the 'accident', nor in the airport that morning when they held one another so tightly. Not even during the beautiful service just moments ago. Only now, standing alone in front of the undeniable proof that Admiral AJ Chegwidden was really gone forever, did they let go and cry for him. Each holding the other like a lifeline necessary to their own existence, the marine colonel and the navy captain wept for the patriarch of their most unorthodox and fiercely dedicated family.

TBC

A/N: Um, so... I liked Webb. Not season 9/beginning of 10 Webb, but the Webb who called Harm for help in Webb of Lies, or got Sergei out of that prison camp. I thought he was lots of fun, even if he was an arrogant ass, and his eps are some of my favorite. TPTB really ruined his character. So I tried to fix him.


	4. Chapter 3

Thanks to everyone who's reviewed so far- you guys are great! I'm glad y'all enjoyed Webb; he's going to be popping up a few more times. And ps, the dedication in the prologue also included the authors at "this site", as well at at the voyboards. "This site" won't allow website addresses for whatever reason, so it was bleeped out. shrugs Go figure.

Chapter 3

May 20, 2006  
19:00 EST

The Robert's house had finally emptied out. It had been a long afternoon, with dozens of people going in and out all day. Most were known by the JAG crew, but there were a few new faces. Men that had served with the admiral in Viet Nam as well as his neighbors from the house in McLean were in attendance. Even some people that he'd befriended during his stay in Italy had flown out to honor the former Judge Advocate General. And everyone had a memory to share. Former Seals spoke of his bravery and dedication to his men. His neighbors spoke of a man who would mow his elderly neighbors' lawns, and grumble about Girl Scout cookies, but never turn away a single child. Friends told of losing someone that they could always count on to be there with just a phone call, day or night.

They had started out spread throughout the house. Nearly every available seating space in the living room was taken. Couples sat in laps to free up a chair. Many were sitting in front of the fireplace or on the bottom few steps of the staircase. There were others milling about in the kitchen picking at food. Eventually they made their way to the back deck to find patio chairs and a porch swing. The boys would occasionally run through the house up to their room or out the back door; someone, usually Harriet or Mac, hollering after them to slow down. But there was too much going on to really follow through with the order, so fifteen minutes later, they would come tearing around a corner or across the room again.

After the first hour, the crowd thinned out a little. All the big wigs and brass that attended mostly for show had paid their respects and bid the hosts goodbye. Then the back yard dwellers began wandering back in to find freed up seats in the living room. The stories started shortly after the last of the guests made their way in from outside. It began with Bud and Sturgis telling Varese about the first Christmas the Robert hosted at their house. Of course, the entire JAG office had an interesting tale to tell about that particular Christmas Eve. It was Jennifer Coates who shared the story of a couple, Mary and Joe, who's baby ended up being delivered by the admiral in his office that night. This prompted little AJ to announce that he, too, was born in that same office. Knowing how much the little boy loved to hear about it, and noticing the look of curiosity on General Creswell's face…it was, after all, his office now…Harm and Mac took turns telling the outrageous anecdote in full detail, complete with broken elevators and crazy Australians; and little AJ's favorite part, Tiner, passed out cold. "He fainted like a school girl!" AJ reiterated just incase anyone was unclear on that fact. To his credit, Jason Tiner took it in stride and smiled indulgently, if not a tad bit chagrined, at AJ's outburst.

From there the stories just kept coming. Nine years worth memories for some, even more for others. Sturgis laughed himself to tears when Harm and Bud recounted the events leading to Mac bailing them and AJ out of jail the night before Bud and Harriet's wedding, while Harriet huffed about pregnant strippers and overbearing mothers. A gentleman that attended the academy with the admiral, Jerry Noonan, picked up at the end of that story, beginning his by informing everyone that that was NOT the first time the straight laced Seal had been tossed in the drunk tank. And so the afternoon progressed with almost everyone in attendance sharing at least one 'remember when' about AJ Chegwidden.

Four hours, and more than a hundred stories later only a few remained. Eventually, after helping to clean up and put away what leftovers Harriet couldn't pawn off on anyone, Sturgis and Varese announced that they had to leave. Varese had a show in Vegas the following evening and they had a plane to catch that night. Mikey and Jason then convinced a still rather distraught Jen to go out on the town with them, after only a little pushing from Harm, who agreed that the young woman deserved to unwind a little. Victor, who had initially begged off when Jason invited him, quickly changed his mind when he found out that the pretty petty officer was going. Noticing the interest the gunny seemed to be showing, Harm had a friendly little chat with him before they left, ending with Victor promising not to let Jen "unwind" too much. Harm trusted Victor Galindez, but a little big brotherly concern wasn't uncalled for in his opinion. Gunny seemed to understand.

Finally only the Roberts family, Harm, and Mac were left. Only then did little AJ finally get to show off his most prized possession when Uncle Harm asked to see his new bike. So the men headed out the back door into the early evening air, leaving Mac and Harriet alone for the first time all day.

"He's been wanting to show off that bike to Harm since we surprised him with it. It's all he's talked about for a month. He and Bud have been practicing riding everyday." Harriet got the twins situated in their highchairs before walking back over to the counter to retrieve the coffee mugs. From the window in front of the breakfast nook, there was a clear view of the driveway where the dynamic duo of Rabb and Roberts were dealing with two wound up and over sugared little boys. Mac watched as AJ's little chest puffed out with pride as he showed off his big boy bike. Harm 'ooh'd' and 'ahh'd' properly over it, immediately turning to show the same amount of excitement for Jimmy's new power wheels truck. While Harm let Jimmy lead him by the hand to his new toy, AJ began tugging on his dad's sleeve and talking animatedly. Judging from the vigorous shake of Bud's head and the resulting pout on his son's face, Mac could only guess that AJ's request was typical of the boy: outlandish and probably dangerous.

The banging of small hands against plastic trays brought Mac's attention back to the kitchen. Nicki and Nathan were having a blast snacking on some sort of cookie that immediately turned to an interesting kind of mushy paste as soon as it made contact with baby slobber. It didn't look particularly appetizing to Mac, but then she wasn't a year old. These two seemed to think it was the best thing since sliced bread.

"I can't believe how old he looks riding that thing," Mac commented to Harriet as the harried mother finally sat down with two cups of French Roast. They both looked back out the window in time to see AJ begin pedaling his bike in circles around the double-wide drive. Shaking her head, Mac watched in amusement as Bud and Harm tried diligently to keep AJ upright and in one piece, while making sure Jimmy didn't end up road kill.

"Yeah, well, my son now believes that having a two wheeler with no training wheels automatically makes him a pro-BMX biker. He's going to give me a heart attack this summer," Harriet replied, cringing as AJ tried to pull a wheelie. Harm's large hands snatched him seconds before he tumbled backwards off the bike. "I think Bud and I are going to have to set down some serious ground rules before we let him loose with that thing. Apparently a helmet and pads aren't going to cut it for my wild child," sighing she added, "Talking about his birth today made me realize how old he really is getting. It happened so fast!"

"Mmm," Mac responded distractedly as she continued to watch Harm try to impress upon AJ the importance of keeping both wheels of his bike firmly on the ground. He looked so relaxed and…at home.

Harriet watched her friend from over the rim of her coffee cup with slightly narrowed eyes. Placing the mug down in front of her, she deliberately did so just hard enough to snap Mac's attention back to her. "So, are you going to tell me what's going on with you, or do I have to beat it out of Harm later?"

Mac tilted her head to the side and studied Harriet intently. "Well, it's not a big secret or anything. I mean we weren't going to really make any announcements until it was made official…" she trailed off and sighed contentedly, looking back out at the love of her life. "It looks like Harm's transfer to San Diego is going to come through. His Europe assignment is almost up, and between his ten years at JAG and a year of teaching experience in London; especially his Rules of Engagement training course, he's first pick for an administrative opening at NJS." Harm had surprised her with the news at the hotel before they left to meet Bud and Harriet that morning. She'd nearly wept with joy. They could finally start their life together. And Harm had been so excited about the position. For all his whining about feeling old, he truly loved his newfound role as instructor and mentor.

Harriet's bright smile nearly blinded her when she glanced back at the woman.

"Oh, Mac! That is so wonderful. I'm so happy for you two!" Her smile then turned slightly conspiratorial. "Soooo… does this mean wedding bells in the near future."

"Weeelll," Mac responded, mimicking Harriet's tone, then continued in a more teasing voice, "…it could possibly happen…"

Harriet's eyes narrowed again. "What aren't you telling me? Come on, give," she demanded.

Laughing out loud felt so great to Mac. She really did miss Harriet. "Harm and I have already discussed marriage. We were just waiting until we were on the same continent again. Of course, we'll probably wait until he's settled in California before we try to plan anything." Rolling her eyes fondly, she added, "That is if his mom will wait that long."

"'His mom' nothing! I'm not going to wait that long!! I've waited ten years already!"

Mac laughed again. "Well, you'll have to. We haven't made any definite plans. He hasn't even properly proposed yet." She picked up her coffee and took a sip, wincing as it burned her tongue. "All we know at this point is that it's going to happen. Eventually."

Harriet's response was an exasperated sigh. "That would be so romantic if it wasn't so incredibly irritating." She took the sting from her words by reaching over to place her hand over Mac's. "I'm so glad you guys are finally going to get everything you want."

Mac quickly broke eye contact with Harriet, covering her sudden shift in mood by patting their joined hands with her free one before pulling away. "Me too Harriet. Thanks."

Acutely aware of Harriet's blatant observation of her, Mac tried to steer the subject back to the mundane. "She's getting awfully messy with that," she pointed to Nicki in her chair. Somehow, the girl had managed to turn the once semi-solid cookie completely into a pile of goo. She was experimentally poking it with her finger then smearing it on her oblivious brother's head. The substance then would darken as it hardened in his hair, cementing his little blond curls together.

"Yeah, bath time will be fun tonight," Harriet answered offhandedly. Mac knew that tone. That was the 'Harriet-will-not-be-deterred' voice. She wasn't finished with their conversation. Mac sighed in resignation, her shoulder slumping slightly.

Harriet spoke up again. "As happy as I am for you, and as incredibly pleased as I am that I was the first to know," they both shared a grin at that before she continued, "we both know that something else is going on. I've seen Harm watching you all day today. And it wasn't just an 'I-love-that-woman-and-I-am-going-to-marry-her' look. It's more of his 'I'm-slightly-overprotective-when-it-comes-to-Mac' look. And I heard him ask more than once if you wanted to go lay down upstairs. He even asked me which bedroom would be best to send you to if you were feeling tired." There was a small amount of curiosity in Harriet's eyes, but it was overwhelmed by palpable concern. "Now," she took Mac's hands back into her own, "should I be worried?"

Mac turned back towards the window and smiled as Bud and Harm showed AJ the age-old trick of clipping a card to the spokes of your bike so that it made 'motor' noises. AJ and Jimmy were both bent over with hands on knees watching with as much seriousness as a med student observing his first by-pass. Turning to the twins, she took a wet-nap and tried unsuccessfully to wipe some of the 'concrete cookie' from Nathan's hair. When that failed to yield results, she gave up and picked up her coffee to test the temperature again. Damn, still too hot.

With nothing left to stall with, she looked back up at Harriet and attempted to smile reassuringly. "No, you have nothing to be worried about. I'm absolutely fine. You know Harm, he's a chronic worrier."

"Yes," her friend acknowledged, "but his concern, however exaggerated, usually has some basis in fact. So what's going on?"

Studying the contents of her mug intensely, Mac took a deep breath. Just open your mouth and start talking, she told herself. Don't stop until it's over. Like ripping off a band-aid. The faster you get it over with, the less it'll hurt…yeah right.

"A couple of weeks ago, I woke up with horrible abdominal cramps. By the time I got to work, I had started my period…a week and a half early. Most women would have ignored it as an irregular month. I had done some traveling, aside from my trip out here for the birthday party, so it would have been an obvious conclusion. But with my endometriosis I didn't want to take any chances. Especially since the cramping was getting progressively worse throughout the morning. So I called my doctor and managed to talk my way into an appointment that afternoon."

She stopped and continued to stare into her mug, as if the answers to questions she'd been asking herself for the last couple of weeks would somehow suddenly appear, swirling within the depths of the amber liquid.

Harriet couldn't stand it anymore. "Are you okay? It's not the endometriosis again is it? Are you going to need surgery?" She had a million more questions she could have fired at Mac, but was brought up short by her best friend's next statement.

"Spontaneous abortion. I was almost four weeks along. The doctor said that most women who experience one at this stage of a pregnancy never even know they were pregnant. They assume like I wanted to that it's just a rough period. After a while the cramping stops and they are never the wiser. Except I am." Mac sniffed a little then looked up at the horrified expression on Harriet's face and hurriedly continued. "I'm fine, I promise. No lingering effects. They can't say for sure if it had anything to do with my condition. It's common for the body to reject a fetus in the first few weeks if it's not developing properly . I was sent home to bed the rest of that day and told to take it easy. No lingering effects," she repeated in order to reassure herself as well as Harriet.

"Oh, Sarah, I'm so sorry. Why didn't you call me? I could have helped you. I, of all people, know what you were going through…."

"That's why I didn't call you Harriet. I didn't want to bring up all those memories for you. It wouldn't have been fair. Besides, I don't feel like…" Mac fought for words to explain her mentality, "I just feel like I have less of a right to be upset. You carried Sarah for nine months. You felt her move, saw her picture and heard her heart beating. I didn't even know I was pregnant until it was gone." Her eyes dropped down to the tabletop. "How can I mourn someone I never knew existed?" She knew that it didn't make sense when she said it out loud and she wiped the tear that managed to escape while she waited for Harriet's rebuttal. She wasn't disappointed.

"Sarah MacKenzie, that is the most ridiculous load of bull honky that I have ever heard! For one of the most intelligent people I know, you sure can come up with some ignorant ideas." Forcing eye contact with Mac, she continued more gently, "You lost a baby…plain and simple. And it's unfair and it hurts like nothing else you'll ever experience. You have to talk to someone about that, or it'll eat you alive. Please tell me you haven't been keeping this all to yourself. I'm assuming Harm knows, so you have been talking to him, right? He must have been a basket case, being so far away…"

Mac was both touched at the concern for Harm in Harriet's voice, and amused at how well she knew him. "Of course Harm knows. It was his baby too. I would never keep the knowledge of his child from him. And if you have any doubt as to my talking to him about it, I'll send you my phone bill at the beginning of the month." She gave Harriet a sardonic smile before continuing. "He almost went UA when I called him. It took a phone call from my doctor, a nurse practitioner and his mother to convince him that I was okay physically, and a three and a half hour long conversation with me before I got him calm enough to understand that I wasn't going to break as long as I knew that he was just a phone call away. I think that call was what persuaded him to stay where he was. Well that and a promise to let his mom stay with me for a few days." She took another sip of her now lukewarm coffee. Was there never a happy medium with the stuff she wondered idly? "Trish was wonderful. And after a lot of badgering on her part, I was able to unload some on her. And she was good for Harm too. I think he spent as much time on the phone with her as he did with me those first few days. Like I said, my phone bill is going to be hell."

Harriet smiled crookedly at that. "Money well spent. I'm glad you had someone to turn to. But," she continued in a motherly voice usually reserved for AJ when he breaks something and tries to hide it under his bed, "…you still should have called me."

Putting her hands up in mock surrender, Mac answered in mock boot camp style, "Ma'am, yes ma'am!" She smiled back before adding sincerely, "Thanks for reminding what a good friend I have, Harriet."

Harriet's eyes shined with collected moisture as she tried to shrug off the compliment with a casual, "No problem." In a firmer voice, she added, "So, now that I know, will you promise me that you'll call me if you need to talk? It's a horrible thing for two women to have in common, but if we can help each other, we'd be complete fools not to."

"Cross my heart," Mac replied, crossing her index finger over her chest. Hesitating only a second, she asked softly, "Does it still hurt?"

"Some days more that others," Harriet answered honestly. "You learn to move on with your life, for yourself and the people you love. But you never forget."

This time it was Mac who reached out for Harriet's hand. "Well then, I guess we'll just have to remember together." They smiled at one another, both realizing that they had just reached a new level in their already strong friendship.

Deciding the mood needed to be lifted some, Harriet stood up and reached for one cookie-crusted baby. "How about we take these two upstairs and hose them off before the boys come in. I'd like to have the them in bed before the lawyer gets here."

Thankful for the conversation Harriet forced her to have, but also thankful that it was over, Mac pulled Nathan up and into her arms. Acutely aware of the pasty mess that coated the baby, she mentally applauded herself for remembering to bring herself and Harm clothes to change into after the guests left. She couldn't imagine trying to get the brownish sludge out of her dress blues. Following Nate's mommy and sister up the stairs to prepare for bedtime, Mac suddenly remember something from earlier. She came to an abrupt halt and repeated incredulously to Harriet's retreating form, "Bull Honky!?"

TBC


	5. Chapter 4

A little FYI, the memory that Mac shares with Harm below is actually one of MY earliest memories of living in Yuma when I was little. Except for the Marine Corp Hymn part.

Chapter 4

Same Night an Hour Later

Harm, Bud and the boys just beat the downpour as they piled in the back door to the kitchen. The thunderstorm was completely unexpected, but not unusual for springtime. Besides, rain suddenly appearing from nowhere was nothing new to Harm after over a year in London.

Help yourself to leftovers Harm," Bud spoke as he started taking off muddy shoes and damp jackets from the boys. "I'm going to get these two upstairs and help Harriet get them cleaned-up." Ignoring the moans and groans coming from his sons, he ushered them out of the kitchen and up the stairs.

Harm began wandering the house in search of Mac. Turning the corner into the living room, he found her standing in the dark at the window, looking out into the storm. Walking up behind her, he wrapped his arms around her waist and rested his chin on her shoulder. Then, just because he wanted to hear her laugh, he blew a light raspberry where her shoulder and neck met. It immediately won him the response he was hoping for.

"Hey mister," she smacked one of the arms holding her tightly, "I think you've been spending too much time with AJ and Jimmy."

"Hmm, I think you're right," he nuzzled her hair with his nose, relishing the smell he'd been missing. "I'd much rather be spending some quality time with their godmother."

They stood together quietly, watching the rain and listening to the mundane family noises coming from the Roberts' bathroom upstairs. Harm began swaying back and forth to music only he could hear, holding Mac as close as possible.

"Have you ever seen a thunderstorm in the desert?" Mac asked in a hushed voice so as not the ruin the peaceful atmosphere.

"They have thunderstorms in the desert?" Harm chuckled, finding the idea comical.

"Yes Harm," Mac replied with exaggerated exasperation, "they have thunderstorms in the desert. Not many, but it does happen." She was silent for a moment before continuing. 

"One of my earliest memories is of one like this. I was about four-years old I guess. I remember that I was scared to death when it started so suddenly. It was unnaturally loud to me; Yuma nights were normally so quiet. So I waited until it seemed to let up a little and the first chance I got, I jumped out of bed and ran as fast as I could on my slippered feet to my parents room." Harm had to chuckle at the picture of a tiny Sarah MacKenzie, clad in footie pajamas, hightailing it to mom and dad's room for protection from a little thunder. Knowing Mac's family history, though, he prepared himself for anything, hugging her a bit closer just in case. He felt her run her fingers tips along his knuckles as she continued.

"When I got to the door I peeked around the frame. My mom was dead to the world, but Dad was up watching out the window. When he saw me, he motioned me over to him and lifted me up. He walked me back to my room and sat down on my bed and asked if the storm had woken me. I nodded, fighting tears, so he held me close and leaned back against the wall, and opened the curtains next to my bed. Then he told me that God was putting on a magic show just for us and that I shouldn't be scared because it would make Him sad." She laughed before continuing, "Then he started humming the Marine Corp Hymn, which I'm pretty sure is the only song my dad knew that was appropriate for a four-year old.

"I remember sitting there in his lap, feeling his chest vibrate against my cheek, and I started to calm down and really watch the storm." Harm felt her sigh and he smiled against the top of her head, so grateful that this was a good memory for her. "It was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. In the desert, there's nothing to obstruct your view of the lightning so it's more than just a flash of light; you actually see every bolt that rips across the sky. And it's not like the lightening here. It was like...dozens of rainbows flashing and dancing around in the dark. Sometimes they were purple, or blue, sometimes pink or orange or yellow. For a four year old, it was like something out of a fairytale. It was amazing. I found myself less and less scared of the thunder because it only meant that the show wasn't over yet. I really believed that night that God was making magic, just for me and my dad."

She finally turned to face Harm. He was half expecting tears in her eyes, but all he saw was nostalgia accompanied by a bittersweet smile. "That's my favorite memory of my father. Before the drinking and the fighting started. We were just a normal family." She sighed wistfully and Harm didn't bother resisting the urge to lean down and kiss her.

"It's a beautiful memory, Sarah," he said quietly when their lips parted. He hugged her close. "Thank you for sharing it with me."

"I should thank you," she replied pulling back to give him one more peck on the lips.

"Me?"

"Yes, you. I had totally forgotten about that night, about any good times with my father...until you made me go see him one last time. It was right after I came home from his memorial service that we had a bad storm in DC and that memory just kind of popped up out of my subconscious. Explained why I've always loved storms so much."

Smiling down at her, he held both her hands in his, "Well, technically I didn't make you do anything. I strongly suggested. You just happen to know smart advice when you hear it," grinning cheekily, he pulled her hands until her arms were wrapped around his waist, then he kissed her forehead.

The sudden thundering of little footsteps on stairs temporarily drowned out the real thing outside. Seconds later, "Eew! Mo-om, Uncle Harm and Aunt Mac are getting all kissy face in the living room!"

Laughing embarrassedly, Mac rushed to hide her face in Harm's broad shoulder. He could feel the heat of her blush through his shirt as he turned, taking her with him, to face AJ. He was standing at the foot of the stairs in his Spiderman pajamas with his arms crossed, looking a bit disappointed in his aunt and uncle. Apparently he was under the impression that godparents were above such public displays of affection. Harm chuckled at the thought. "Look here buddy," Harm started in a pseudo stern voice, shaking his finger at AJ, "…it's not nice to spy."

"It's not spying if you're in the middle of the living room," the boy replied in his best 'duh' voice.

"He's got a point, Sailor," Mac's muffled voice came from his shirtfront.

Harm was saved from having to defend his stance on eavesdropping further when the doorbell rang.

"I got it!" Mac literally leaped from Harm's embrace and sprinted out of the room to the front door.

Harm's eyes followed Mac out of sight before turning back to his godson. "You know," he began casually, "someday you're going to be the one sneaking kisses from a girl," he pointed his finger at AJ to head off the denial he knew was coming, "…and you better believe, buster, that I'm going to be there to embarrass the heck out of you."

With that, he lunged at the boy and swung AJ up over his shoulder, something that was getting more and more difficult to do; he really was growing up. Flipping on the light as he passed the far wall, he faux body slammed AJ onto the couch then followed the boy down, tickling him. AJ was laughing hysterically, managing to getting out, "Stop Uncle Harm, pleeaaassse," in between spurts of giggles.

Feeling secure that he had the upper hand, Harm moved to roll them onto the floor before Harriet caught them rough housing on her furniture. Unfortunately, that ended up being a tactical error on Harm's part. Suddenly he found himself on all fours with an extremely wiry seven-year old wrapped around his back.

Trying to figure the best way out of his current predicament without hurting himself or AJ, he wasn't prepared for the next instant when Jimmy came barreling down the stairs yelling, "I wanna hewp!!!" and jumped right across Harm's upper back.

With a loud 'umph' Harm was immediately pressed flat on his stomach with both kids flung on top of him. As luck…well, his luck at least…would have it, it was while in that very undignified position that he realized he and the boys were no longer alone in the room.

"Heh-em." Yup, that was definitely Mac. And those were her tennis-shoes he was looking at. The high heel clad feet next to hers were a mystery though. He couldn't lift his head high enough to see past ankle height with a three-year old lying across his shoulders. This was bad.

"Boys!"

Oh thank God for Harriet. AJ and Jimmy scrambled off of Harm, who rolled off his stomach and into a sitting position; still not the best position to be when being introduced to someone, but at least he could see faces now. Mac was standing a couple of feet in front of him with her arms crossed and an entirely too amused for his liking look on her face. Harriet was at the foot of the stairs trying really hard not to laugh at Harm while scolding her children about playing too rough. A tall blonde woman wearing an expensive looking black suit jacket paired with a short, just this side of appropriate, skirt had moved off to the side, undoubtedly waiting out of the way until good order and discipline had been restored.

Uncrossing her arms, Mac held out a hand to help Harm off the floor. Once on two feet again, she proceeded to make a show of dusting him off and smoothing out his cloths, smirking as she did so. "Harm, this is Marcia Crosby. Ms. Crosby, Captain Harmon Rabb."

"Marcia, please. Nice to meet you, Captain," she smiled, stepping just a hair too close in order to shake his hand and holding it just a little longer than necessary. "I'm sorry I interrupted your...wrestling match?" Harm knew flirting when he saw it. Better nip that in the bud if he wanted his first night with Mac, in over a month, to end with them in the same hotel room.

"We don't get to see our godsons too often anymore, so they get a little excitable sometimes." As he spoke, he pulled his hand away and moved next to Mac, placing it at the small of her back. There was no question as to whom the 'we' was that Harm was referring to.

Seeming to get the picture, Marcia backed up a step as well and smiled in understanding, although whether it was in response to his spoken or unspoken statement, Harm wasn't sure. Turning to Harriet, who had left it to Bud to settle the boys down with a movie in the rec room, Marcia introduced herself.

"Subtle, Flyboy," Mac leaned in to whisper in his ear.

Shrugging casually, Harm gave her a cocky grin. "Worked didn't it." He leaned down and kissed her quickly before following Marcia and Harriet into the study.

Bud joined them a few minutes later, and after the last of the introductions was made, Marcia pulled some papers out of her leather shoulder bag. Most of what she had to say was nothing they weren't expecting to hear. Being lawyers meant that little about the proceedings would surprise them. Almost everything would eventually be sold at an estate sale. Bud and Harriet were extremely humbled to learn that AJ had set up trust funds for all four of their children. His will stated that he wanted to makes sure that, "The sky's the limit, whether they choose to go to Annapolis, a university, or join the Peace Corp."

Marcia quickly explained that AJ had been living with his daughter in Italy. Since Francesca's lawyers were dealing with her affairs, and there was nothing of her father's there but some personal effects…clothes, books, etcetera…it wasn't really necessary for them to bother with anything overseas. "Now, as for the house in McLean," Marcia pulled another stack of papers up onto her lap. "It was stated in his will that Mr. Chegwidden had left instructions for his daughter to empty it out as she would know what he would want done with most of his things. However, there was a stipulation that if, for whatever reason, Ms. Peretti was unable to make the trip to the states to take care of this, he would like Mr. and Mrs. Roberts to do so."

Harm noticed Harriet dab at her eyes and nose with a tissue that looked like it had seen better days. "Mac and I can help with that." He knew that it was probably unspoken that they would be helping with everything from here on out, but he felt like he needed them to be sure. Mac nodded her agreement and dabbed her nose with her own abused tissue.

Marcia continued when she was sure no one else needed to add anything. "We'd like to put the house up for sale as soon as possible, but that probably won't be for at least a couple of weeks. Since its contents were left in your care, you are of course welcome to save anything that might be of personal importance. Anything else we can sell along with the house."

Shuffling some more paper around, she continued reading from the notes in her lap. "Mr. Chegwidden's dog is currently with the housekeeper at Ms. Peretti's; however, she has said that when she leaves, she will have to give her up."

"Oh, Damnit!" This time Harriet did let a few tears fall. Bud reached over to take her hand.

"Pardon?" Marcia raised her eyes up to Harriet, her head still bent down towards her notes.

"That, um, that's the dog's name. Damnit," Bud tried to explain, shrugging his shoulders in a silent apology for any offense taken.

"Charming," the lawyer replied dryly. 

"Actually," Harm interrupted, "I might know someone who could take her. Can I get back with you tomorrow evening?"

"Yes, of course," Marcia replied, "but you understand that you will have to pay to have the dog shipped back over here…plus immunizations."

"She saved the admiral's life once," Harm stated. "The least we can do is find her a new home."

"Perfect. I'm sure that will be a weight off of Albina's mind. I know that between the baby and the dog, that poor woman is feeling a load of guilt. She's just not financially stable enough for either." Looking back up from making the note about the dog, she noticed four blank stares. Misunderstanding their confusion, she clarified, "Albina, the housekeeper. Apparently she was hired by Ms. Peretti to help out once the baby was born. She's been taking care of the dog and the little girl since the accident. However, the apartment is going up for sale at the end of next week and Albina is planning on moving out of the city and back with her family. The baby will be turned over to the proper authorities while the dog was probably going to be put down. She is quite old."

Nothing.

Just as the silence was starting to get uncomfortable, Harm found his voice enough to ask, "Baby? What baby?"

Raising her eyebrows, Marcia began shuffling papers around again, just to make sure she wasn't mixing up cases. "Right here…Sophia Rachele Peretti…born April 8, 2006 to Francesca Peretti. Here's a photo of the child with Mr. Chegwidden," she passed the picture to Harm. "I'm sorry, I just assumed you knew about her. Her father, Paul Jordan, an American reporter, was also killed in the explosion that night. In fact," more paper shuffling, "…yes, it was from his car that the blast originated."

So that was the mysterious third person. Wait a minute... "I was under the impression that the admiral was in no way connected with the bombing…that he and Francesca just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time." Harm looked back down at the picture. It was taken in a hospital room. Admiral Chegwidden was wearing green scrubs and holding a tiny pink bundle of a baby girl, with just a tad more hair than her grandpa. She also seemed to be letting loose a scream that probably would have put the retired seal's 'dressing-down' voice to shame. The smile on AJ's face was priceless. Turning his attention back to Marcia, he passed the picture to Harriet as he waited for an answer.

Marcia gave him an apologetic look. "I really don't know much about the investigation."

"What's going to happen to her?" Harriet looked up from the picture in her hand, no longer trying to stop the tears. Seeing the admiral with his baby granddaughter just weeks ago was absolutely heartbreaking.

"As I understand it, there are no living relatives," Marcia smoothly shifted from one subject to another as only a lawyer could, "so she'll be transferred to a home, temporarily I'm sure. There shouldn't be a problem finding a place for her. She's very young, and in perfect health. She should be adopted out pretty quickly."

"She's a child, not a stray cat," snapped Mac, surprising Harm. She'd been so quiet that he had almost forgot she was there. She immediately looked contrite and apologized before looking down then away to hide the tears in her eyes. Harm didn't miss them though. He moved his hand to the back of her neck squeezing softly, then just resting it there, hoping she took some comfort in his touch. He just wanted to take her back to the hotel. They were both exhausted.

"I understand," Marcia accepted Mac's apology gracefully. "This has probably been a long day for all of you. And I am very sorry I didn't mention the little girl earlier. I thought you were aware of her situation." Reaching down into her bag, she retrieved an envelope. "There was one more thing, then I'll let you get back to your evening. Mr. Chegwidden left this with his personal papers. There was another addressed to his daughter, but obviously...well, this one's addressed to all four of you."

Harm swallowed and reached out for the letter. He held it up, silently asking if anyone else wanted to volunteer to read. Taking their silence as a go-ahead, he broke the seal and pulled out two pages of stationary paper. Clearing his throat, he began:

_"To Harm, Mac, Bud and Harriet,_

I'm addressing you by name and not rank because I want to make sure you understand that this is a letter to and from friends. Not CO to officers. I'm not going to drag this out. I wrote one letter to you all for a reason; I didn't feel like writing four letters saying the same thing. I'm not a pomp and circumstance sort of man. I'm sure I don't have to tell you that. But if I'm gone, I just want you to know, for the record, that you've been a wonderful family to me. I want to thank you for that. The four of you gave me a second chance at something I thought I'd lost, and along the way, taught me to how to be a family for my daughter as well. You have gone above and beyond to earn my gratitude and respect, and I hope I earned yours as well. We were strange and often dysfunctional," Harm snorted a little at that and he could feel the teary smiles without looking up, "…but a family none the less. My ten years at JAG were the most fulfilling of my life, because of the people I with whom I was surrounded. I am a better man for knowing not only you, but your colleagues as well. So thank you for sharing with me your Christmases and Thanksgivings, birthdays and weddings and births. Never doubt your ability to make others' lives richer by being in them. You certainly did mine. Bud and Harriet, I'm sorry I won't be around to see your children grow up. Tell them their Uncle AJ misses them, and that I'll always be watching out for them. And Mac, please forgive me. I won't be able to walk you down the isle on your wedding day. But please don't let that stop you from finally making an honest man out of Harm, as I have not doubt that it will be he that you meet at the alter. Take good care of her, Captain…and for God sakes Son, let yourself be happy. Hoo-Rah and Semper Fi. 

Albert Jethro Chegwidden."

TBC


	6. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

May 21, 2006  
0945 Local

"Hey Unca Harm!"

"Hey what, Jimmy?"

"Where we goin?"

That had been the billionth time since the trip had begun that Jimmy had asked that question.

"We are going to see Uncle Harm's plane. Geesh!" Apparently it hadn't escaped AJ's attention that Jimmy kept repeating himself.

Harm and Mac decided to take the boys for the day to give Bud and Harriet somewhat of a break. Even with the twins, the absence of a preschooler and grade-schooler from the house would make a world of difference. So at six a.m. they showed up at the Roberts home where AJ and Jimmy were buzzing with excitement. It took about twenty minutes into the ride before both fell back to sleep for almost two hours. Of course, that still left two to go. Thank goodness Bud had insisted on them taking the family's mini-van. Harm had put up a token protest, but he had been dreading a four-hour plus ride in that evil piece of machinery Dodge called a car. He hadn't even thought about the advantages of having a DVD player on a long car trip with two small children. You are a genius, Bud J. Roberts.

"Hey An' Mac!"

"Yes Jimmy," Mac replied patiently, giving Harm an amused smile as she turned in her seat to see the children in the back.

"We gonna see a pwane!" They were headed up to Blacksburg to visit with Mattie and Tom and to take the boys for a ride in 'Sarah'. Harm hadn't been up since he left for London. He was supposed to take AJ for his birthday, but it had rained most of the weekend.

"We sure are!" Mac answered back in an equally excited voice. "Do you think you'll want to take a ride in it?" Harm smiled to himself as the conversation about airfields and planes and flying continued. She had a great personality for dealing with kids. She made going to McDonalds for dinner sound like a trip to Disney World.

Harm was thankful that Mac seemed more relaxed today. Yesterday had been horrible, and then last night with the lawyer and the letter from AJ...it hadn't been pretty. By the time Marcia Crosby had left the house, Harm was more than ready to take Mac back to the hotel and put her to bed.

Poor Harriet was still in tears when they left. Mac herself had been quiet and rather withdrawn during the car ride home. She let him reach over to take her hand, but she didn't initiate any other sort of contact, physical or verbal. As soon as they walked into the room, Mac hit the shower. Harm followed her into the bathroom a moment later to brush his teeth. No words were exchanged as they finished their nightly rituals.

Mac was sitting on the bed in a tank top and cotton pants, towel drying her hair when Harm finished his shower. Dressed in drawstring sweatpants with a towel around his bare shoulders, he sat down behind her on the bed. He put his hands on the tops of her arms and softly ran them all the way to her fingertips, forcing the towel down into her lap. Leaning down, he kissed the spot where her neck began to curve up, wet hair tickling his nose.

"Harm?" She let go of the towel and laced her fingers through his. She sounded so young. 

He bent himself down further and rested his forehead on her shoulder. "Yeah baby?"

"Can you just hold me tonight?"

He replaced his forehead with his lips, not really kissing, just touching. "I don't know, Colonel," his lips brushed against her skin, grinning slightly, "I think that request might warrant a red light."

Snorting, she elbowed him lightly. Letting go of one of her hands, he twisted around and started pulling down the bed. Then he scooted back, taking her with him, until they were both at the head of the bed ready to crawl under the covers. Spooning together, Harm wrapped both his arms tightly around Mac, pressing his face into her hair. He could feel her back moving against his chest with each breath she took. It was mere minutes before their breaths came in sync and they fell asleep.

There was no heavy talk last night, and there would be none today with the boys around, but Harm knew that there was something weighing heavily on Mac's mind. It didn't take a genius like Bud to figure it out either. She…they…had just lost a baby. It hurt Harm like nothing he'd ever felt. His chest throbbed when he thought about the child he'd created with Mac; a child he'd never get to meet. He could only imagine the pain Mac was going through. The baby that Marcia had told them about the night before was a harsh reminder of that ache.

"Hey Unca Harm!"

"Where did this 'hey' business come from?" Harm wondered out loud, having been yanked back to the present by Jimmy's demand for attention.

"Harriet said he picked it up from some of AJ's friends at the birthday party. She thinks that he thinks it makes him a 'big boy'," Mac chuckled as Jimmy's voice rang through the car again.

"Hey Unca Harm, we gonna see a pwane! An' we gonna eat hambaugas fo suppa!"

"You know young man," Harm teased, looking at Jimmy through the rear view mirror, "it's a very lucky thing that your Aunt Mac is fluent in so many languages, because I just barely understand 'toddler speak'." Jimmy cracked up at his godfather, although Harm was sure the barely three-year old really didn't understand what he'd just said. His laughter probably had more to do with his brother and godmother's giggles than anything else.

"Look!" AJ suddenly became very animated. "Uncle Harm look, is that it?" The boy was bouncing up and down in his seat and pointing to the hanger, which had just come into view.

Harm took a left off the highway and made his way down the gravel road that led to Grace Aviations. "That's the place AJ. And I think..." Harm's eyes did a quick scan of the grounds before they landed on the yellow biplane, pulled out and ready for inspection, "Yup. Look guys, can you see 'Sarah'? She's the big yellow one right out front."

There was silence from the back seat for about ten seconds as the boys looked for the plane. Then, "Yeah I see it! See the plane Jimmy? Wow, it's gynormous!"

Mac cocked an eyebrow and looked over at Harm questioningly. "Gynormous?" she asked quietly. He just shrugged. Where these kids picked this stuff up was beyond him.

Pulling the van around the side of the hanger, Harm parked to the right of the building. He tucked the keys in his jacket pocket and hopped out of the vehicle. Stretching his tall form, he turned to rescue AJ from the child-proof locks keeping him trapped in the back seat. He was grabbing the boys' bags when he heard Mattie's voice.

"Harm!" she screeched in typical teenage fashion. Running over, she threw her arms around his neck allowing him to pick her up a few inches off the ground for a proper hug before depositing her back on the pavement. 

"Hey Mattie! How are you? AJ, you remember Mattie right?" He looked down at his godson for confirmation, but AJ had eyes only for the yellow stearman parked a few feet away.

Mattie snorted down at AJ before looking back up at Harm. "Are you sure that kid's not yours?"

"Be nice," he warned playfully, then bounced his finger on the end of her nose a couple of times before she could duck away.

"Hey Mac!" Mattie walked past Harm toward the front of the car where Mac was coming around with Jimmy on her hip, the excited boy pointing to the plane and clapping. They laughed at his youthful exuberance as Mac wrapped her free arm around Mattie in a warm hug.

"How are you Mattie? How's your dad?"

"Everybody's doing great…including Grace Aviations. You wouldn't believe how business is picking up!"

Harm walked over with AJ in tow. "What about school?" Ever the dad, he had to ask the unpleasant questions. As expected this got a less than enthusiastic response from Mattie.

"School's fine," she answered in that bored teenaged, mentally rolling their eyes at you sort of way. "Finals are next week and I am in no danger of failing anything and will definitely be a senior in high school in September, so you have nothing to worry about."

"Unless you count a new boyfriend as something to worry about," Tom Johnson spoke up as he came around the side of the building. Ignoring Mattie's exasperated "Daaaaad," he grabbed Harm's hand in a firm handshake. "How're you doing Harm? London treating you well?"

"Not to bad Tom, but I won't be there much longer. I got an administrative position at the Naval Justice School in San Diego," Harm explained, his eyes lingering on Mac as she followed Mattie over to 'Sarah', the boys running ahead.

"Not to broken up about the transfer I'm guessing," Tom smiled coyly at Harm, who felt suddenly embarrassed at having been caught practically ogling Mac's six in front of Mattie's father.

"So," Harm eagerly changed the subject and he and Tom began following the ladies, "what's this about a new boyfriend? Have you met him? How old is he? I know people who can check him out; you know that, right. Just say the word." Tom laughed again as the two men headed over the rest of the group.

Mattie, who had heard at least most of what Harm was saying, looked pleadingly at Mac. Taking pity on the poor girl, she walked over and wrapped her arm around Harm, steering him toward the plane. "I'm sure that Tom has this boyfriend thing under control. He's probably a very nice boy, right Mattie?"

"He's a great guy, but he's not my boyfriend. We're just, you know," she shrugged one shoulder, "hanging out. For now."

"Hey Unca Harm look! A pwane!" Jimmy was jumping up and down next to his brother and pointing at 'Sarah' excitedly. "Let's rwide it, peease!"

For the next forty-five minutes Harm tinkered with his biplane, the boys glued to his side the entire time. He was patient with questions, and explained to them everything he was doing as well as why it was important. Most was probably lost on Jimmy, but AJ was absolutely enthralled. Of course, Jimmy was just please he was doing big kid things with his Uncle Harm and big brother.

Every now and then Harm would glance over to where Mac and Mattie were sitting, laughing together. He couldn't help but worry that it was at his expense that they were having fun. Thank God his mother wasn't there too. Once, he looked over and caught Mac's eyes. She winked at him, grinning widely, and it was at that moment that he decided that being the butt of some jokes wasn't that steep of a price if it put that smile on his love's face.

Two hours later Harm had taken up AJ by himself, Jimmy on Mac's lap, Mac by herself (after some cajoling), Mattie, then AJ one more time. Afterwards, lunch was set up at a picnic table under the covered patio off the side of the office. Harriet had packed a basket full of enough food to feed the boys, Harm, Mac, Mattie and Tom as well as the two employees working that day. After the boys put away more food than it seemed possible for two young bodies, they were loaded back into the car for the short drive to the Johnson home.

Upon arriving, Mattie took the two boys around to the back yard where an old jungle gym, complete with a tire swing and slide, was set up from Mattie's childhood days. Not having to be asked twice, the boys were all over it in seconds. Mac had mentioned to Harm in the car that she wanted to talk with Tom alone for a few minutes, just to see how he was doing, without Mattie, or Harm for that matter, around to influence his perception of his recovery. In other words, Mac didn't want the sugar-coated version that Harm or Mattie would probably get. So with that in mind, he followed Mattie and the boys to the back of the house as Tom and Mac headed up the front porch steps.

Seating himself next to Mattie on the back porch swing, he kept his eyes on the boys as he said, "Sooo…new boyfriend. What's his name?"

Sighing resignedly, she replied, "His name is Michael and he's not my boyfriend. Not yet at least…there haven't even been any real dates yet. We've gone to the movies a couple of times, but always with other people."

"Did he pay?"

"Yeah, and Mac already told me that that constitutes a date."

Laughing, Harm responded, "Hey, I just wanted to make sure this guy was a gentleman."

"He is Harm, I promise. Dad met him once and even he liked him. Plus, Michael knows I have a second father who's in the Navy and could get him drafted." Mattie giggled at the last part. "At least that's what Dad told him."

"Good man."

Mattie turned sideways in the swing to face Harm, one leg bent at the knee and the other hanging off the seat, pushing them lightly. "I'm sorry about Admiral Chegwidden."

"Thanks sweetheart." Harm leaned over and received quick hug from his one time daughter. When he let go, Mattie returned to facing forward, leaving her head laying on Harm's shoulder and her knee bent up for her arms to rest on. Harm's arm lay across the back of the seat behind her.

"How's Jen doing? She said she was fine on the phone, but I could tell she'd been crying." Mattie huffed lightly. "She never was a good liar, especially for someone who use to do it for a living."

Harm smoothed down the hair on the back of her head affectionately. "She's upset, but she'll be okay. Jen's a tough girl when she needs to be. One of the things you two have in common," he noted with pride, dropping his hand back down behind her. "Some friends managed to get her to go out last night, so that's a good sign."

"What friends? Guy friends? Any of them cute?" Mattie's head came up off Harm's shoulder, suddenly very interested in what he had to tell her.

Thinking of the way Victor Galindez helped Jen on with her coat last night, and how he held the door for her, Harm chuckled a bit. "I plead the fifth. You'll have to ask Jen about that one."

"Party pooper," Mattie pouted, returning her head to its previous spot. They sat silently for a few minutes before Mattie spoke again. "Dad told me about the admiral's dog. I think bringing her here is a great idea. We have plenty of room," Mattie gestured with one hand to the vast amount of property that her house sat on. "It'll be like her place of retirement. Is her name really Damnit?"

"Yeah, it is. That dog managed to find the admiral in the middle of nowhere and lead him back to civilization. AJ probably would have frozen to death if it wasn't for her. She deserves a stable home in a place like this."

"Well, she definitely has one," Mattie said with certainty. She was quiet for a few minutes, then, "Mac told me about his granddaughter."

Harm waited but she didn't say anything else. Finally he asked, "What did she say?"

"Just that she saw a picture of him with her. That he looked really happy…proud." Mattie shifted uncomfortably, like she had something to say, but wasn't sure how to vocalize it.

"Spit it out, kiddo."

"I was just thinking that it's too bad that we can't help that little girl like we're helping Damnit." She was leading up to something, Harm could tell. He waited patiently. When she didn't elaborate, he nudged her with his elbow. "You and your dad wanting to take on a dog and a baby?" he asked jokingly, hoping to get her to open up.

"I was thinking more like you and Mac…."

Harm sputtered, choking on his own breath and dislodging Mattie's head from his shoulder in the process. "What?! Mattie, that's...we can't...that's not an option, Mats."

"Why?"

"Well, I live in a different country for one thing…."

"You're being transferred to California in a month," she fired back.

"We don't have a house yet and Mac's place is barely big enough for the two of us to…."

"Harm, your parents have, like, a mansion practically next door." Oh, she's good.

"Mattie, it's complicated. We're not even officially engaged. I mean, we've never even lived together for any extended period of time," Harm sighed and rubbed his forehead with his fingers. "Honestly, I don't know if I'm meant to be a dad." There, he'd said it. The one thing that had been eating at him since Mac's miscarriage. Maybe fatherhood just wasn't in the cards for him.

"Oh Harm, come off it. Look at those kids in the yard," Mattie made a sweeping motion with her arm in the direction of the jungle gym where AJ and Jimmy were having the time of their lives. "Those two boy worship you…and Mac."

Harm watched the boys chase each other around the perimeter of the play area laughing, their arms out to their sides like the wings of a plane. "Being awesome godparents is a far cry from being real, everyday parents, Mats," he sighed again before looking up abruptly at the young girl. "Did Mac say something to you? About..." he let the thought drift off and waited impatiently for Mattie's answer.

"No, not really, it was more the look she got on her face when she mentioned the baby," Mattie quickly reassured her 'Navy Dad'. "She didn't say anything else after she mentioned the picture, I swear." 

Nodding, he turned back toward the boys, who were taking turns going down the slide. He smiled as he watched AJ stand at the bottom of the ladder while Jimmy climbed up the five or six rungs, then shout for his brother to wait until he ran around to the bottom of the slide before giving him the okay to come down. Big brotherhood was certainly beginning to suit AJ.

"Hey Harm," Mattie pulled his attention back to her. "Just for the record, to me, you are a real, everyday and awesome dad. I couldn't have asked for a better one."

Harm felt the telltale prickle of tears beginning to form as he reached over and pulled her against his chest. "Thanks kiddo. You are an awesome daughter."

"I missed you, Harm."

"I missed you too, Mats."

"Harm," she asked into his chest, a playful lilt in her voice.

"Yeah?"

"If you really loved me, you'd tell me about this guy that took Jen out last night..."

TBC


	7. Chapter 6

Again, thanks so so _so_ much for the reviews. They do my soul good, and I'm so glad everyone is enjoying this. That is why I wrote it after all :) For anyone who's worried that this might be one of those stories that gets half way through and disappears (yes, that has happened to me numerous times- and I totally understand how real life can get in the way) rest assured that this puppy has been finished for a while, and I will continue to post at least once a day. Fourteen chapters, plus a prologue and epilogue.

Chapter 6

May 21, 2006  
2215 Local

Mac followed Harm up the front steps of the Roberts' front porch. Each had a little boy draped over their shoulder asleep. The kids were still going strong when they left Tom and Mattie, and even after playland at McDonalds. It wasn't until the last hour of the trip home that they finally passed out. Mac was actually impressed that Jimmy lasted as long as he did with the measly forty-five minute nap he took while AJ was taking his second ride in 'Sarah' before lunch.

Harm knocked softly so as not to wake the sleeping children with them, or any that might be snoozing in the house. Bud answered the door and ushered the foursome inside. He then relieved Mac of Jimmy and motioned for Harm to follow him up the stairs with AJ, leaving Mac and Harriet to chitchat for a few minutes. After the kids were in bed, Harm and Mac bid the Roberts a goodnight, promising to call them the following day to make plans to head to the house in McLean. They traded back cars, and then Harm and Mac were on their way back to the hotel.

Mac glanced at Harm for the tenth time since dropping off the boys. He seemed...distracted? Pensive? He had that look in his eye. The one he used to get when they were working a case and he was on the verge of putting all the pieces together, but he wasn't quite sure if he had it right. Right now, all that was missing to complete the picture was a pen pressed between his pursed lips... Hmmm, Harm's lips...and his mouth. Oooh, Harm's tongue pressed….

She gave her head a mental shake to clear her thoughts. How she ever, ever got any work done in those nine years was a mystery she knew she'd take to her grave. Knowing him intimately as she did now, if she had to go back, she probably would have jumped him that night at Red Rock Mesa.

Forcing herself back to the present and away from fantasies about herself, Harm and that mattress in the back of the truck they rented from Billy the gas station attendant, she turned almost sideways in her seat to face him more fully.

"So, did you and Mattie have a nice visit? You didn't harass her too much about that boy, Michael, did you?" She figured that since they'd spent the whole day with Mattie and Tom, and that, as she told him in the car on the way home, Tom seemed to be doing just fine, his mood must have something to do with Mattie.

Flipping the left turn signal on to pass the truck in front of him, he answered with a sly smile in her direction, "No, Ma'am, I did not harass her, and I resent the implication that I might be an obnoxious father." As soon as the words left his mouth, that pensive look was back on his face.

Maybe she had it wrong. Maybe it was her miscarriage that had him upset. Perhaps being with Mattie and the boys all day was a reminder of what he didn't have. She'd certainly learned in the past couple of weeks that those thoughts could sneak up on you when you least expected them.

"Hey," she leaned forward slightly and placed her hand on his thigh, "…you okay? You seem distracted."

He began chewing his bottom lip, a sure sign that something was on his mind. He covered her hand with his and squeezed reassuringly. "Actually, Mattie did say something to me today..." he trailed off as he flipped on the right turn signal to pull up to the hotel parking lot. "Let's talk about it once we get back to the room and settled in for the night." He glanced over and gave her a tight-lipped smile before patting her hand and returning his to the wheel.

She got the distinct impression that he was stalling. However, she was quite anxious to get inside and shower off the dust and grime from a day at the airfield, so she could hardly argue. Nodding in agreement, she turned to open her car door as Harm pulled the keys out of the ignition. Walking around the back of the car, he met her by her door and wrapped his arm around her waist as they headed for the entrance.

Walking into the room first, she tossed her purse on the bureau before pivoting around to sit on the bed. Crossing one leg over the opposite knee, she began untying her tennis shoes.

"Wanna conserve water again," Harm asked. He was standing in the bathroom doorway, shirt already unbuttoned, holding himself steady on the door frame to take off his own shoes. She looked up at him to see a teasing grin on his face.

"Well, I do like to do my part in the fight to save our resources." She finished taking off the other shoe before standing up and heading to the bathroom that Harm had just disappeared into. She was practically undressed by the time she reached the doorway. The door shut behind her with a giggle. It was almost an hour before it opened again.

Harm was the first to reemerge, a thick steam flowing out behind him.

"Make sure you turn it up high or it won't kick on," Mac hollered from the still running shower. She stuck her head out from behind the shower curtain and watched from the half open bathroom door as Harm danced from one wet foot to the other across the hotel room toward the thermostat. The much too small towel wrapped around his hips was giving her a great view of his backside and she leaned against the shower wall staring appreciatively.

"Hurry, it's freezing out there!"

"Yeah, no kidding. I am the one running around the hotel room wet and naked in case you haven't noticed," he replied as he rushed back in to the bathroom and closed the door quickly to prevent the loss of any more heat.

"Oh, I noticed," she openly stared at his six as he turned toward the sink and grabbed his razor. Meeting his eyes in the mirror she winked before ducking back behind the curtain. She turned off the water and grabbed the towel hanging over the curtain rod. The buzzing of his razor was the only sound in the small room for the next few minutes.

Stepping out wrapped in white terrycloth, Mac reached around Harm to snatch her toothbrush and the Crest. "So, when are you going to tell me about this mysterious conversation you and Mattie had this afternoon?" She began brushing her teeth with one hand as she crossed her other arm over her chest to help hold up the towel, turning to face him expectantly.

She saw him hesitate, then set the razor down on the sink and look over at her. His gaze was intense and she began to squirm under its pressure. Then he took a deep breath, as if he were about to take a dive off the side of a carrier. "Mattie said that you and she talked about the admiral's granddaughter."

Mac immediately turned toward the mirror and began brushing vigorously at her teeth. "Yeah, I told her about the picture we saw," she replied around a mouth full of foam and plastic." She wasn't sure what else to say. Her emotions were all over the board when it came to that little girl. She knew that the most logical explanation was that she was transferring all the feelings she'd been having about her baby these last few weeks onto this motherless infant, an infant she'd never even seen in person. It just felt like more...

"Mattie thinks that we should keep her."

The brushing stopped and the toothbrush hung lifeless from Mac's lips as she turned to gawk at Harm.

"She thinks that that's what you want too."

Her whole body felt numb. Boy, he wasn't beating around any bushes tonight was he? Finally becoming aware of herself again, she gave him an "Um, uh," before turning to spit out the mouthful of toothpaste, deciding that an empty mouth was probably more conducive to having this conversation.

Drying her lips off with the back of her hand, she looked back up at Harm. "I didn't tell her that," she immediately defended.

"No, she didn't say you did. It was more like that female radar you all seem to have," he gave her a cute little grin to try to relax her.

"Well, did you tell her it was not practical for us right now?" She rinsed and dried her toothbrush and put it back in her cosmetics bag.

"Yes, I did," he leaned against the counter, using his investigative eyes to watch her every move.

"And that we weren't even engaged yet…haven't even lived together?" She moved to put all her jewelry from that day into her little accessories bag.

"Uh, huh. She didn't seem impressed."

Mac began brushing out her hair. When it was wet, it was a good ways past her shoulders, a look she knew Harm loved. Not that she was trying to distract him or anything... "Well, that's a teenager for you. Everything is always so easy…Black-and-White, Right-and-Wrong."

"Mac?"

"Yeah?" She snuck a look at him through her hair. His look was still intense, but not scarily so.

"Have you ever considered adoption for us?"

She put the brush down and turned to face Harm. It looked like this conversation was happening whether she wanted it to or not. Quite frankly, she wasn't so sure she didn't want it to happen. It was just so confusing.

"Honestly?" she began, smirking a little on the inside at the surprised look on his face. He probably thought it was going to take more to get her to open up. She liked that she could still throw him off. "No, I've never thought about adoption for us. I hadn't really given up on the idea of us creating our own children."

"Neither have I." He reached over and ran his finger down the side of her face. "So is this because of...of the baby...our baby?"

Tears pooled instantly in Mac's eyes.

"Hey, hey, I'm sorry sweetheart; I didn't mean to make you cry." He pulled her to him by her shoulders and gave her a tight hug. It was the kind of hug that made Mac feel like nothing bad could ever touch her. She sniffed a couple of times and let him hold her until she felt the tears recede. When she pulled back, he ran his hand through her hair. "OK?"

She nodded and curled her lips up slightly for him. "It still hits me at the strangest times."

"Me too," he smiled humorlessly.

"Really?" She knew Harm had been heartbroken about the whole thing, but she guessed she thought he would have been able to move on easier.

"Yeah," he gave a self-depreciative snort, "a couple of days ago, I was in the lobby of my building when I saw a woman with one of those snugglie things that Harriet used with AJ. The one that strapped onto her chest. There was a beautiful baby in it. Black hair and brown eyes, he was probably only a couple of months old. He looked at me and smiled this big toothless smile, and I had to excuse myself to the restroom before I embarrassed myself in front of a lot of important people."

He said that last part with true humor, but the story broke Mac's heart. She reached over and cupped her hand against Harm's cheek. "It really sucks, huh." She gave him a teary smile, which he returned.

"But we still have a chance right?" he continued eagerly. "Once I get moved to California and we get settled. You said the doctor was optimistic about fertility drugs…or if that fails, IVF. Nothing changed with that because of the..." He trailed off, not wanting to say the word that he'd come to loath. Holding her eyes intently, he looked as if her answer held everything in his world. She swore she loved him just a little more in that instant.

"Yes, Harm…relax. I have a great OB/GYN and she's ready to start whenever we are." Mac leaned forward and kissed the dimple in his chin. He grinned at her and pulled her in for a kiss that left her toes curled and her lips swollen.

When he pulled away, that inquisitive look was back. He held her around the waist and cocked his head. "So what's all this about? Is it just hormones, or some sort of maternal instinct? I'd believe that Mattie was just being a nosy, overly imaginative kid if it weren't for your initial reaction to the subject." She tried to pull away, but he held strong. "Wait, don't walk away. What's going on in here," he removed one arm from around her waist and tapped the side of her head with his finger.

She closed her eyes. How do you explain something you think is crazy without making yourself sound, well, crazy? It was so frustrating!

"Mac, do you want to adopt the admiral's granddaughter?"

Her eyes snapped open and she looked like a deer caught in the headlight. "We can't, our jobs, my place is too small, we're not married..." 'Shut up' she told herself. It was the argument she'd been having internally all day. Does she or doesn't she; can they or can't they. Will he or won't he...

"Mac, all that can be taken care of. DO YOU want to adopt this baby?"

"Yes," her voice was uncharacteristically weak. She hated it.

"Why? Because of losing our own?"

"No!" There, that was better. Firmer. Angrier. How dare he suggest that she could ever think of replacing her child with another. That was her baby, losing it was like losing a piece of her soul. She tried to pull away from him, jerking around to head for the door. He held on tighter.

"Hey, hey! Stop trying to run away from this," he demanded, his voice rising a little. "We've spent the better part of the year learning how not to do that." He loosened his grip and sighed in relief when she didn't pull away. She still wasn't looking at him though, and he couldn't help but start to get a little irritated with her sudden change in attitude.

"I would never," she took a deep breath, "could never replace my baby with someone else's. Never," she repeated venomously. She looked up into his eyes then, practically daring him to contradict her.

He was holding her by the shoulders now, staring directly into her eyes. "Then why?"

Not breaking eye contact, Mac just let her emotions take control. "Because she's a part of this family. She's AJ's granddaughter. I want her to know what a wonderful man he was. I want to make sure she's raised with the morals and values that I know Francesca would have instilled in her. I want to frame that picture of her grandfather holding her in the hospital to put on her dresser in her room. I want our friends to watch her grow and tell her stories about her Grandpa AJ. I want Little AJ to teach her to ride a bike. When she's older, I want her to be able to visit her grandfather like you visit your dad. I want him to be a part of her life, even if he's gone." Her tears were flowing again, but she didn't care. She had somehow managed to put into words what she couldn't even explain to herself in her head. It was his eyes, she suddenly realized. Even when they're at odds, she could always find the answer to anything in them.

Currently, those eyes were full of love and admiration. Before she could say anything else, he swooped down and kissed her hard. It ended just as abruptly as it began, with a huge smile on Harm's face. It must have been contagious, because there was a matching smile on her face that she didn't even notice until she caught a glimpse of herself, still wrapped in his arms, in the mirror.

"You're amazing," he stated.

"You're not so bad yourself, Sailor."

"Do you really want to do this?"

"Do you?" she fired back. "You never really said one way or the other."

"Well, it won't be easy at first. You'll be alone for the first few weeks. You might even have to move in with my mother," he shuttered for effect, eliciting a giggle from Mac, who he still held tightly. "Of course, legally and as far as anyone knows, she is an orphan. Paul Jordan was American, so technically she's a US citizen as well as Italian. And we have a letter from her grandfather, the unsealing and reading of which was witnessed by a lawyer, practically spelling out in no uncertain terms that we are family. We could argue that we are, in fact, next of kin..."

He looked at her and she felt the smile shining across her face. "There is one itsy bitsy detail that we'll need to work out," he pulled her closer and kissed her deeply, surprising her.

"Hey Mac," he said, a la Jimmy Roberts, when they finally broke apart.

"Hey what, flyboy?"

He reached behind himself into his shaving bag on the counter. When he brought his arm back around, there was a black velvet box in his hand. Mac's hand flew to her mouth and her already misty eyes spilled over yet again. He took the hand that covered her mouth, which happened to be her left, and slipped the ring on her finger. Then he kissed it. She knew she had to look like a mess. Her hair had begun to dry naturally and was probably sticking out all over the place. She had no make-up on and her eyes must have been red from crying. Somehow, she'd never felt more beautiful.

"Mac," he began again, "when we get to San Diego, before we leave D.C. if you want, but very very soon, would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?"

With an extremely un-Marine like shriek, Mac threw her arms around his neck. Laughing, he spun her in a circle once, very slowly, relishing the feel of her in his arms. Suddenly she began laughing almost hysterically. Putting her down slowly, he pulled back and studied her as if he were debating her sanity. This made her laugh harder. It took a minute to calm herself, a minute in which Harm was actually beginning to worry.

When she regained control, Mac rose up onto her toes and kissed him sweetly on the lips, then dropped back down and smiled.

"Do you realize we just made two of the most important decisions of our lives in a hotel bathroom dressed in tiny white towels," she leaned around him and looked down, "one of which doesn't leave much to the imagination." She giggled, as Harm turned red and reached around in an attempt to close the gap at his six.

"Yeah, well, I'd planned something a tad more romantic than the bathroom to propose, but the ring was right there, and I honestly couldn't think of a better time."

"It was perfect," she punctuated her statement with a peck on the cheek.

"So," he said, giving up on the towel and pushing some hair behind her ear, "we're gonna do this? Are you ready to start a family?"

"I'm game if you are." She tried to pull off calm and collected, but she was exuding nervous energy.

He gave her a full blow, one hundred watt aviator smile. "I'll make some calls in the morning. We could probably be on a flight to Italy by tomorrow afternoon."

"Harm, you're not just doing this for me are you," she asked as she followed him into the bedroom and grabbed a t-shirt and some underwear out of her bag. She sat down on the end of the bed after slipping them on. He walked over to her in a fresh pair of boxers. "I don't want you to regret this, or feel pressured just to make me happy," she continued. "This has to be something we both want."

"You made a strong closing argument back there, counselor." He sat next to her and took her hand. "After that, I'd be crazy not to think that we weren't meant to be Sophia Rachele's parents." Kissing her forehead, he got up and pulled down the bed. "Let's get some sleep. Something tells me that soon, we'll be begging for it."

Once curled up together, Harm reached around Mac to turn off the light.

They lay face to face, drinking each other in. One by one, tears began to fall from Mac's eyes. They weren't uncontrollable; they weren't accompanied by loud sobs. These were cathartic tears. Soon she noticed wet tracks on Harm's cheeks as well. They spoke softly, well into the night…words of comfort, doubt, and affirmation.

That night they were reminded that, in the end, all they needed were each other's arms and hand and lips to know that it would somehow all be alright.

TBC


	8. Chapter 7

I've been told that you might have to read this chapter twice to figure out "who's on first" so to speak... an observation which I don't doubt. But man was it fun to write lol.

Chapter 7

May 22, 2006  
1605 Local

Harm glanced over at the lovely marine colonel asleep on his shoulder in the cramped airline seats. He felt bad keeping her up so late the night before, but after the hours of talking and tears came the comforting, and after the comforting...well, it had been weeks since they'd seen each other. It was to be expected that they'd be a little...needy.

Stopping a passing stewardess he asked how much longer the flight would be.

"Just another fifteen minutes and we should be landing, Sir," she replied in a harried voice, a heated bottle in her hand that one could only assume was for the screaming infant in the back of the plane. With a sympathetic smile, Harm nodded his thanks and let her get back to business.

Turning back to Mac, he couldn't help but imagine that some time soon, it would be them trying to sooth their crying baby on the flight home. Funny how such a small thought, an idea that would make most seasoned parents quake in their boots, could fill him with such giddiness.

He smiled as he thought back to that morning when they dropped their rental off at the Roberts' house on the way to the airport. Bud had already left for work and Harriet was enjoying the last week of school before little AJ was home all day.

"Hey guys!" she had greeted cheerily. "I thought we were getting together this afternoon to talk about the admiral's house. Come on in." She stepped aside to allow them entry. Harm and Mac followed her into the kitchen where she went back to rinsing and loading breakfast dishes into the dishwasher. Both twins were in highchairs with dry Cheerios all over their trays. Cartoons could be heard coming from the T.V. room which no doubt contained Jimmy.

"Actually Harriet, we came to see if we can reschedule," Harm said as he grabbed Nicki's hand to shake it, eliciting a giggle from the little girl. "We may need to put it off for a couple of days."

"Sure, not a problem. Marcia said that we had a couple of weeks, and you guys are here til next Sunday, so we should be okay," Harriet turned around, drying her hands on a towel just as Mac reached out to grab Nate's chubby little wrist before a handful of Cheerios became projectile weapons.

"Oh my GOD!" Harriet all but screamed. Thinking he was in trouble, Nate began howling immediately. "Oh, Mommy's sorry, big guy," she apologized contritely as she reached past Mac and pick her son up out of his chair. Mac's hand was still attached to the baby's arm since the cereal was still clenched in his fist. Grabbing her best friends own wrist, Harriet twisted it, and her son's hand with it, to get a closer look at what she thought she saw. The maneuver allowed Mac to pry the cereal from Nate's little fingers.

Harm watched the whole thing unfold in amusement.

"Is that...are you guys, like, officially...you know!?" Too excited for full sentences, Harriet looked from the diamond solitaire on Mac's ring finger, to Mac, to Harm, then back to the ring. Her head was moving so fast that Harm couldn't help but wonder how she wasn't giving herself whiplash.

Mac hit Harriet with a full-blown smile, freeing the last of the Cheerios. "Harm proposed last night," she said, sounding almost like a gleeful teenager announcing she had a date for the prom. Harriet shrieked again, much like Mac did last night.

Realizing that he wasn't in trouble, Nate's tears disappeared as quickly as they began. Harriet placed him back in his chair and lunged at Mac, squeezing tight. Harm subtly braced himself against the edge of the kitchen table when he saw her turn toward him next. The force of impact did not disappoint.

"I can't wait to tell Bud! Wait, I'll call him right now…."

"Harriet!" both shouted at once. This time Nate and Nicki laughed out loud at the noise.

Turning away from the phone, Harriet smiled ruefully. "Sorry, I just get carried away when it comes to weddings."

"Well, we can't really stay long, we have a plane to catch," Harm explained, not really knowing how to phrase the next piece of information. He really didn't want to be responsible for his best friend's wife's head exploding all over their nice clean kitchen.

"You are NOT planning on eloping are you? Because I know plenty of people who would be more than happy to form a lynching mob and hunt you down," Harriet waved a warning finger in his face and he wasn't all that sure she was joking.

"At ease, Lt." Harm laughed as he put his hand up as if to show he was in no way a threat. "We're not quite sure when we're going to set a date, but you'll be the first to know."

"Was I the first to know this?" Her eyes sparkled with the idea of untold gossip.

"Yes, Harriet," Mac smiled indulgently. "You were officially the first to know. But we really need to leave soon or we'll miss our flight."

"So, if you're not eloping," she looked accusingly at Harm for confirmation; he shook his head emphatically, "then where are you off to in such a hurry?"

Harm and Mac exchanged looks, neither knowing how to begin.

"Well," Mac sighed, "we talked about it a lot last night..."

"And this morning," Harm interjected.

"This is not a decision we've made lightly…."

"It actually took some yelling and tears…."

"Mostly mine I'm afraid," Mac admitted sheepishly.

"And it in no way means that we are giving up trying…."

"Or that we only got engaged to help move things along…."

"No, definitely not," Harm wrapped his arm around Mac's shoulders, forming a united front. "This is something that both of us want."

"And we think we're in a place that we can do that now. It's our time." Mac looked at Harm lovingly, tipping her head up slightly to accept his kiss. Grinning, they turned back to Harriet.

"What in the HELL are you two talking about?!"

"Hell!" yelled Nate

"Oh crap," Harriet sighed and put her forehead in her hand.

"Cwap!" Nicki this time.

Spinning around, she pointed a finger at her youngest children and announced, "You're both grounded til you're thirty," before turning back to Harm and Mac. Finger still sticking out, she directed it at them just as threateningly, arching her eyebrow in a clear message of 'Spill. Now.'

"We're headed to Italy," Harm informed her.

"Italy? I thought Marcia said that there wasn't anything that needed our attention in Italy." Harriet shook her head in confusion. "Does this have something to do with Damnit? Are Tom and Mattie going to take her?"

"Well, yeah," Harm began, "but that's not really why we're going."

"Well I should hope not. They shell out millions of dollars worth of clothing all over the world every year, most of which no normal person would look twice at by the way. You'd think they could pack up one dog and ship it over here."

"Harriet," Mac stopped her friend. "We're going to Italy to bring Francesca's daughter back with us."

"I talked to the lawyers this morning. We shouldn't have a problem formally adopting her. We argued next of kin," Harm gave Harriet a sly smile.

Harriet, for her part, was actually speechless. If someone had knocked on her front door and told her that Martians had landed at the Pentagon and were currently having tea with the President, she wouldn't have been more floored than she was at that moment. A wedding and a baby?

"Wait, wait, wait," she put her hand up and looked from one to the other. "You're going to adopt the admiral's granddaughter?"

"We decided that she needed us. She's family," Mac stated simply.

They left moments later while Harriet was phoning Bud. The last thing heard from the Robert's home before the door shut behind them was, "Bud, are you sitting down...NO I'm not pregnant again!"

Harm and Mac smirked at each other as they made their way to the taxi that would take them to Dulles.

The dinging of the seatbelt signal reminded Harm he needed to wake his lovely fiancée up. They would be landing at Milan Linate Airport any minute.

He bent down to see her face, brushing a few stray strands of hair off her nose before kissing it lightly. "Hey Marine."

"Hmm," she opened her eyes and smiled lazily before a large yawn overtook her features. More awake now, she sat up and stretched before looking around. "We landing?"

"Just a few more minutes." No sooner had he said it, the plane began it's decent. Harm instinctively reached out for Mac to take his hand. She still had a thing about the landings. Smiling gratefully, she clutched his fingers tightly until the plane touched ground. Then, after Harm took a minute to untwist his body, they gathered their carryons and headed for the front of the plane.

It took about an hour to get through customs and pick up their shared suitcase from the baggage claim. Harm held the suitcase and the door for Mac as they exited into the late afternoon sun. Wisely, they chose to stay at the Holiday Inn Linate right next to the airport. With limited knowledge of the Italian language, they managed to check in and make it to their room without much of a fuss.

Harm was just getting off the phone when Mac came out of the bathroom looking very refreshed after their eleven-hour flight and two layovers.

"Well, Albina, Francesca's housekeeper, is expecting us any time. You ready?"

"As I'll ever be. Do I look okay?" She glanced at herself in the mirror, tugging down the bottom of her three quarter sleeved lavender sweater and brushing imaginary lint off her black cotton pants.

"You look like the world's most beautiful mommy," Harm replied as he removed her hand from the hem of her shirt before she pulled it out of shape, and kissed her knuckles. He was rewarded with a dazzling smile.

"Such a charmer. Come on Pops, we have a baby to go meet."

"Pops? Pops!" He followed her out of the door of their hotel room. "How come you get 'beautiful mommy' and I get 'pops'?"

The cab ride to Francesca Peretti's penthouse apartment was a quiet one. Both Harm and Mac were content to sit back and take in the beautiful city, their hands clasped together in the middle of the seat. Upon arriving at the correct address, they were met by the absolute last person in the world they expected to see on this trip.

He was leaning casually against the rod iron railing surrounding the tall apartment complex. When the cab slowed to a stop and Harm helped Mac out of the back seat, he pushed himself upright and headed their way.

"Webb, what in the sam hell are you doing here?" Harm asked irritably.

"Getting puked on by AJ's grandmonster," Webb answered dryly as he came to a stop in front of them. He was sporting a large white stain on the left lapel of his expensive looking suit jacket.

'That's my girl' Harm thought wryly. Out loud he said, "WHY are you here, Webb?"

"Clay," Mac interrupted, "What's going on?"

Webb sighed and looked around as inconspicuously as a trained agent, then looked back at the two. "I'm sort of working on a case."

"I thought you were out of the field," Mac crossed her arms and traded a look with Harm.

"Better question," Harm held up a hand to get everyone's attention, "What does the admiral's daughter's house have to do with a CIA investigation?" He was beginning to get a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"Let's take this inside. As I understand it, you two have someone important to meet." Webb held open the gate for the couple and followed them up the walk, smiling innocently every time Harm turned around to glare at him. "Just be careful not to bounce too much, it can get real messy," Clay said, indicating the lovely spot on his jacket, as the trio disappeared into the massive building.

Harm held Mac's hand on the elevator ride to the top floor of the building. No one spoke and he couldn't decide if it was an uncomfortable silence or not. He could tell by the far away look in her eye as the doors slid shut, that the only thing on Mac's mind was the baby. Webb seemed more concerned with the baby vomit on his lapel than anything else, scrubbing uselessly at it with a handkerchief. Sighing at the weirdness of his life, Harm turned and watched the numbers light up across the top of the car.

Exiting the elevator at the top floor, they were met by a short, rather round woman in her early to mid sixties. She was wearing a long colorful skirt and a matching blouse. Her salt and pepper hair was pulled into a frazzled looking bun high on her head.

"Ah, Mr. Webb, you coma back! And you bring friends. Come in, come in." She ushered the three into the front living room. It was sparsely, yet tastefully decorated. Francesca liked the minimalist look. 'Must be the Navy in her' Harm thought with a sad smile. There were signs of a baby though. One of those travel beds sat in the corner and there was an empty bottle and a pacifier sitting on the coffee table. A colorful play mat was spread out on the floor, complete with arms that arched up from each corner, crisscrossing in the middle, and ending at opposite corners. Different shapes in red, yellow, violet, green and blue were dangling from the appendages.

"Albina," Webb smiled charmingly at the woman, "this is Captain Harmon Rabb Jr. and his fiancée Colonel Sarah MacKenzie. I believe they are here to meet Miss Sophia."

"Of course," she exclaimed excitedly, "you take baby!" Albina gripped Mac's shoulders with surprising strength and pulled her down to kiss one side of her cheek, then twisted her around to kiss the other. Just as swiftly, she turned and grabbed Harm's face, uttered something in Italian and then softly patted his left cheek twice. "I go get Miss Sophia."

When the woman left the room, Mac turned to Webb the same time Harm did.

"How did you know we're engaged?" Mac asked at the same time Harm demanded, "How do you know why we're here?"

Webb just gave them a classic smirk before heading over to the couch, relaxing into the soft cushions and making himself at home.

"Webb, seriously, what's the story here," Harm moved to sit on a love seat facing Webb over a coffee table. Mac continued to roam around the room, looking at pictures and the few pieces of art adorning the walls.

His face taking on a no-nonsense, business like quality, Webb sat forward and pulled out some notes from the case he had with him. "Ever heard the name Greg Mason?"

Trading glances with Mac, Harm shook his head.

"OK, what about Paul Jordan?"

"That's Sophia's father," Mac supplied, moving to perch herself on the arm of Harm's love seat.

"According to Albina, who is a plethora of mostly useless information," Webb rolled his eyes, "he and AJ didn't get along too well. Seems Mr. Jordan was more interested in finding the next big story than he was in being a father, and apparently, he wasn't doing so great at either. He was there for the birth, and had been around once or twice to visit, but he wasn't really involved. The night the car bomb went off, he showed up at Francesca's home to visit with Sophia, and told AJ he needed to talk. Albina says that Francesca went with them to dinner because they had assumed he wanted to talk about the baby, or possibly let them know that he had finally found work," Webb shrugged. "Apparently, they were wrong."

"What do you mean, how do you know that?" The sick feeling in Harm's stomach was becoming stronger. What had the admiral and Francesca walked into that night?

Pulling out an eight by ten photo of an older man in a brown sports coat, he handed it to Harm. "You're looking at Greg Mason, a 'freelance' reporter like Jordan. He contacted our office the day after AJ was killed. According to what he told us, he met Paul Jordan in Algeria the week of February 20th at the Conference for Terrorism Prevention. They got to talking at the hotel bar and Jordan mentioned to Mason that his pregnant ex's father is a retired two star and former seal.

"Two days later at the airport, on his way back to the states, Mason claims an anonymous source hands him an envelope with a picture and some papers documenting a planned attack on US troops somewhere in Libya. The picture was of an Al Qaeda member by the name of Abula Mahlik; the only known picture as far as we can tell." Webb sighed and leaned back against the couch. "He said he felt like he was being followed, so when he ran into his new buddy Paul in the airport bathroom, he stuck the envelope in his carryon, hoping that Jordan would find it and hand it over to his girlfriend's father, the retired admiral. Then he made himself disappear for a while."

"So where is this Mason guy now?" Mac asked, leaning forward a little and resting her hands on the tops of her thighs. "And why did it take so long for Paul Jordan to contact AJ?"

"We don't have a location on Mason. We tracked his call back here to Milan, but the trail goes cold after that. Either he's one paranoid son of a bitch and is still hiding, or he wasn't paranoid enough and he's dead," Webb stated bluntly, "and considering how...abruptly his phone call to us ended, I wouldn't hold out much hope of a happy ending for him." He pulled himself forward again and draped his arms across his knees. "As for Paul Jordan, after listening to Albina go on and on and on about how important his job was to him, I'm starting to get the idea that if he did find it immediately, he was trying to find an angle he could use to advance his career before he turned it over to anyone."

"But he'd be putting American soldiers' lives in jeopardy," Mac replied, her features twisting in disgust. Harm knew what she was thinking. How could someone put his professional life ahead of the lives of the men and women who fight for the freedoms that make his profession possible?

"Well, the attack obviously hasn't happened yet, so maybe when the deadline started to draw closer, he realized he was in over his head, and that's when he contacted the admiral," Harm supplied. He hated all the 'maybes' and 'possiblies'. Unfortunately, no one was left to answer any of the questions still floating around.

"What happened to the documents and picture?" Harm asked suddenly.

"A portfolio matching the description Mason gave our people was found a few feet from what was left of the car. Because the bomb was under the hood, and the folder was, presumably, in the trunk, it was quite charred but still distinguishable." Webb paused, always one for the dramatic flare. "It was empty."

Harm leaned back and rubbed his hand over his mouth a couple of times, letting his mind wrap around the information that had been dropped in his lap. "And we have no idea when this attack was planned for?"

Webb shook his head. "So as you can see, we're on somewhat of a strict timeline. Most likely, they think they've been compromised, and have called it off. However, if they didn't, we could be looking at a deadline a month from now, or tomorrow. Mason didn't get a chance to say, and we have no way of knowing without him or the folder."

They were interrupted by the return of Albina with baby Sophia draped over her shoulder. "So sorry, so sorry!" she exclaimed. "Miss Sophia needed change."

Mac stood up immediately when Albina entered the room, but now she seemed frozen. Harm wrapped his arm around her shoulders and guided her over to the housekeeper. No one noticed Webb slipping out of the room as the shorter woman handed the baby over to Mac.

"Hi there," Mac said with a teary smile once Sophia was settled in her arms. She ran her hand along the top of the little girl head, which was covered in dark fuzz, rather thick for five weeks old. It looked brown, but remembering Francesca's dark auburn locks, Harm was sure that in the light, Sophia probably had her mother's hair color. Her little eyes, which were wide open, taking everything in, were dark as well. The baby looked at Mac with a crooked smile and blew some spit bubbles at her.

Albina laughed heartily, "She lika you. She know you are new Mommy." Mac looked up from the baby to smile gratefully at the little old woman.

"Thank you," Mac said, her voice cracking slightly.

Harm stared in awe over Mac's shoulder at the little person cradled in her arms. This was it. He was going to be a father. In a couple of days, they'd be headed back to the states with this little tiny baby girl and eventually she'd start walking and talking...calling him Daddy. His already iffy stomach did a quick drop to his feet then bounced back up to his throat. He was a Daddy. Mac turned at that moment and looked up at him, the brightest, most beautiful smile lighting her face.

"Do you want to hold her?" Without waiting for an answer, she deposited Sophia in his arms, helping him to position her tiny head in the crook of one arm with his other hand under her diapered rear. Baby and Captain stared intently at one another.

"Her grandpapa, Mr. AJ, he call her Sophie. He was doting grandpapa," Albina said sadly.

"Hello Sophie," Harm said softly, patting her bottom and bouncing her lightly, remembering Webb's warning from earlier. "I'm your Dad. And this pretty lady," he turned the baby slightly so she was facing Mac, "she's your Mom."

Mac held onto Harm's bicep with one hand and with her other she reached over and let the girl grasp her finger in a tiny fist. "You are so beautiful, yes you are," Mac cooed sweetly, mesmerizing little Sophie with the song like quality of her voice. "And you are going to be the most loved little baby, sweetheart, I promise you." She brought the little fist up to her lips and kissed the delicate fingers.

As Harm watched, he realized that he didn't feel apprehensive like he thought he would when he first felt the weight of the baby in his arms. No, he felt no anxiety. What he felt was complete.

TBC


	9. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Same Day

They had arranged for most of Sophie's things to be shipped to San Diego to Harm's mother's house.

He and Mac had phoned Trish that morning to apprise her of the situation. To say she was shocked would have been a gross understatement. However, any motherly concerns she had as to their motivations for the adoption were put to rest once Harm had said his peace, and by the end of the conversation, Trish was calling Frank 'Grandpa' and making plans to go shopping for her new grandbaby. Of course, the tears really started flowing when he told her about the engagement ring on Mac's left hand.

So it was agreed by all, that even if Mac and the baby stayed at her own place until Harm could join them, Sophie's things should initially be shipped to Trish and Frank's house. Mac could go through everything when she was back in town and take what she needed until they found a bigger place, or until she just gave in and moved herself and her new daughter in with her almost in-laws.

Currently, Mac was seated on the sofa in Francesca's livingroom with Sophie napping peacefully on her shoulder. Harm stood off to the side, leaning against the doorframe. He smiled as he watched Mac unconsciously rub circles on the baby's back when she whimpered in her sleep. Sophie, for her part, seemed quite comfortable in her new mommy's arms. Her tiny hands were curled into loose fists, framing her head. Her face was turned up slightly, bending her neck at an awkward angle; an observation which Harm had pointed out a few minutes ago, but was assured by Mac and Albina that it was perfectly normal. Sophie's lips were pursed in the most endearing pout, occasionally making a small sucking motion, and a little bit of drool was forming a dark circle on Mac's purple sweater. The two of them together made a beautiful picture.

He listened as Albina told Mac all about the baby's favorites. She had a pacifier that she couldn't sleep without. There was her favorite toy, a soft, yellow and orange plush lion that rattled when you shook it. Of course, she loved her mobile, a gift from her Grandpa AJ. Hanging above her crib, it displayed different types of boats and seashells in pastel colors and played "Beyond the Sea" when wound up. A lot of these types of things would have to go back to D.C. with them instead of being shipped straight to California.

The decision to leave the two women to their conversation about formulas and bottles and diapers was made when it became obvious to Harm that he was more than clueless as to what exactly was being discussed. He thought cereal was a simple enough concept, so when Albina brought up the fact that Sophie would be ready to try it soon, he questioned her logic, thinking of the Cheerio covered highchair trays at the Roberts'. Albina let out a belly laugh when Mac explained what Harm was talking about.

"No, no," she said in her thick Italian accent, "not breakfast cereal, baby cereal!" Still having no idea what she was talking about, he merely smiled and nodded, glancing at Mac to let her know that she'd need to explain that one later.

Moving into the kitchen, he found Webb closing his cell phone.

"Who was that?" He asked to the agent's back, causing him to jump slightly. "Wow, Webb, you have been out of the field for a while. I didn't know it was possible to sneak up on a spook."

Giving Harm a dirty look, he pocketed his phone and unnecessarily straightened the knot in his already too perfect tie. "_That _was none of your business, Rabb," he answered with an air of superiority.

"Don't pull any need to know bullshit with me, Clayton," Harm began advancing on Clay until he was toe-to-toe with the shorter man, his actions belying his casual tone of voice. "As far as you are concerned, I need to know anything and everything you do about who's responsible for AJ and Francesca." Normally he didn't like to resort to intimidation, but for Webb, he'd make an exception.

Not looking the least bit unnerved, Webb rolled his eyes and huffed. "It was a...private matter, and therefore none of your concern. Now, would you mind backing up a bit," he added curtly, "your cologne is way too strong. It's starting make my eyes water."

Backing up some, Harm had a flash of memory from the day of the funeral when Mac had told him something about Webb being engaged. Plus, he could have sworn that the shorter man was blushing slightly. Accepting Clay non-explanation, but still needing the last word, he simply replied, "Yeah, well, you smell like baby puke." There was just something about Clayton Webb that made him revert to adolescent like behavior.

"Look," Clay began as he turned toward the sink and grabbed a towel to wet under the faucet, "I'll keep you in the loop as much as I can, but I practically had to promise my first born to the higher ups to get Kershaw to give me this assignment. Sarah wasn't wrong when she pointed out that I'm more desk than field now." Webb dabbed at the spot on his jacket with the damp cloth as he turned back around.

"Why?" Harm asked, crossing his arms over his chest and raising an eyebrow.

"Why what?" Clay asked irritably, looking up from the wet patch of grossness.

"Why go to all the trouble to get the case if you don't do field work anymore?"

"I said I don't do MUCH field work," he snapped back defensively. "And maybe you're not the only one who believes that AJ and his daughter deserve justice."

Realizing he was doing more damage than anything, Webb tossed the towel in the sink and put his hands on his hips. He looked back up to Harm. "I'll keep you in the loop, but you have to stay in the background. I've been walking a thin line from the beginning. A lot of people didn't think I should have this case, and I don't need you running around playing James Bond behind my back, making my life difficult."

Harm stared Clay down for a few seconds before responding. "You swear you're on the up and up. This isn't some ploy to get back in the good graces of the powers that be at the Agency?"

"I really don't feel the need to defend my motivations to you, Rabb. I'm doing what I'm doing for my own reasons, and when it's over, I'm going back to my desk and my fiancée and my mother's boring cocktail parties."

Before Harm could reply, Albina came bustling into the kitchen. "Oh, s'cusee s'cusee, I make bottle for Miss Sophia." She busied herself with the baby formula while Harm and Clay stared one another down one last time.

"Albina," Webb finally broke eye contact to smile at the older woman, "thank you for all your help today. If I have anymore questions, I'll let you know." He turned back to Harm. "I'm going back to my hotel. I'm expecting an email from the office." He paused and looked like it almost pained him to make the next statement. "If you give me your cell number and the name of your hotel, I'll keep in touch."

Nodding once, Harm picked up the message pad and pen next to the kitchen phone and wrote down the requested information. Handing it to Webb, the two men turned and headed back to the livingroom. Trailing behind was Albina, a warmed bottle in her hand.

Mac was sitting in a rocking chair positioned next to a picture window overlooking the city. She was doing a decent job of soothing a fussy, hungry baby. Taking the bottle that Albina hurried over to her, she rubbed the nipple against Sophie's lips, smiling as the baby took it and settled down immediately to eat.

"She looks good on you, Sarah," Webb said as he grabbed his briefcase from the coffee table. She looked up to see him smiling at her. It wasn't his standard smug looking grin that Harm was used to seeing; it was an honest and heartfelt smile.

"Thank you, Clay. You should consider one someday," her returned smile was equally sincere.

Clay snorted before turning to Harm. "I'll call you before I leave for home tomorrow." He nodded once, which Harm returned then he was gone.

Albina busied herself with picking up the baby paraphernalia from around the living room and kitchen area.

Harm walked over to the rocker where Mac was quietly feeding Sophie. He squatted down in front of them and placed his large hand on the baby's small, furry head. "She's got her grandpa's appetite," he commented as he watched her suck with flourish, staring at Mac with big brown eyes. Hearing his voice, Sophie started slightly before looking over at him and smiling around the nipple in her mouth.

"That's Daddy, sweetheart," Mac said softly, bowing her head toward the little girl while making eye contact with Harm and smiling warmly. Still sucking furiously, Sophie accepted the finger he offered her. He watched as she pulled it in and hugged it close to her warm little body, melting Harm's heart instantly.

After another minute or two, Mac took the bottle from the baby and lifted her up onto her cloth-covered shoulder and began patting her back. "Albina said she just started smiling recently," she told Harm as she burped the infant. "She also said if we want to, we can stick around here tonight until she goes to sleep that way we're more familiar with her routine."

Harm nodded and stood up, wincing slightly when his knees popped. "That sounds like a plan," he smiled at the little girl when Mac brought her back down to finish her bottle. She stopped before the nipple quite made it to Sophie's open and waiting mouth.

"Do you want a turn?" she held the bottle out to Harm. He hesitated only briefly before accepting the formula. Standing from the rocker, she waited for Harm to settle in her spot before she handed over the baby. "Now, just touch her lips with the nipple," she instructed. Harm did as he was told, and in seconds, Sophie had nestled into his arms to continue her meal.

Harm could feel a warmth spread through him as he watched Sophie stare at him just as she had done to Mac while she enjoyed her meal. She looked at him with such trust and innocence that it almost scared him. However, the fear was far out weighed by an almost overwhelming sense of contentment. He looked up at Mac to see her smiling widely.

"What?" he asked with a silly grin of his own.

"You," she replied, bending down to kiss his cheek. "You've had her for all of sixty seconds, and I can already tell that you are wrapped around this little tiny finger." She held one of Sophie's small hands up and waved her little fingers in Harm's face.

Rolling his eyes at Mac, he turned to the baby. "Don't you listen to her, young lady. Just wait until you start dating. We'll see who's calling who a pushover then." He took the hand that Mac was waving around and kissed it quickly before releasing it.

The rest of the evening was spent practicing being a family together. Actually, most was spent sitting on the floor with the baby playing peek-a-boo and The Wheels on the Bus and other assorted games that Mac had learned over the years as a dedicated godmother. Harm was having the time of his life watching his tough, no nonsense marine talk baby talk and sing about farm animals.

It was after 1000 local before they headed out for the night. He didn't want to leave, and he knew that Mac had been dreading having to go back to the hotel, but that's how it had to work. Neither was comfortable staying the night with a virtual stranger in an unfamiliar house. Harm was sure that if asked, Albina would have no problem letting them take the baby for the night, but they were already unbelievably lucky that everything was coming together so easily that he didn't want to do anything that could jeopardized the adoption now. Not when it was so close to being real. So, they put Sophie to bed after giving her a bath that night, then headed back to the hotel. Tomorrow they would meet with the lawyer at Francesca's to sign the appropriate papers, then Sophie would be theirs to take home.

Once back at the Holiday Inn, Harm took the first shower, leaving Mac sitting on their bed with the photo albums that Albina had given her. Mac was adamant that Sophie have pictures of her first six weeks of life with her birth family. Harm exited the bathroom fifteen minutes later to find her still sitting in the same spot looking at pictures. Sitting down beside her, he smiled at the photo in her hand. It was little Sophie in a purple and yellow jumpsuit with a yellow bow in her hair. When Mac flipped it over for his benefit, it read 'Sophia Rachele Peretti, 12 days old' in what he presumed to be Francesca's flowing handwriting.

"She was named for Francesca's grandmothers," Mac informed him, pulling a pink baby book from underneath a pile of loose photographs. Flipping it to the first page, there was a picture of Sophie with Francesca, obviously taken just moments after her birth. Under the picture in the same flowing handwriting was a little paragraph.

'Sophia Rachele Berrelli born April 8th 2006 at 4:17 in the afternoon, 6 pounds 10 ounces, 19 inches long. Named for Great Grandmother Sophia Berrelli and Great Grandmother Rachel Chegwidden.'

Mac ran her hand across the page. "I feel guilty being so happy about becoming a mother when Francesca's chance was taken away," Mac sighed as she closed the book. Looking up at Harm with a hard, determined look in her eye she asked, "Did Webb tell you anything else?"

"No," Harm replied, running his hand through his wet hair and standing up to pace. "He's suppose to 'keep me in the loop'," Harm made exaggerated quote marks with his fingers, "but I have to stay low key. Apparently not many people at the Company are happy that Spooky Webb is back in the field for this one. He had to pull some strings to get the assignment."

"Gee, I wonder why," Mac mumbled. He knew that she was closest to Webb right before his fall from grace. She had seen what it was that his bosses were so afraid of this time around.

Trying to lighten the mood, he stopped pacing and leaned his hip against the faux wood dresser in front of the bed. "I did catch him on the phone with 'Mrs. Spooky' though. Did you know Clay can blush?" As soon as the question came out of his mouth, he back pedaled, "Never mind, I'm sure you do," which earned him a half-hearted glare. "Anyway, it seems as if our little Clayton is domesticated. I'm pretty sure he was calling to check in. Who would have ever guess." Harm shook his head in wonder, this time earning a smirk instead.

Pushing himself off the furniture, he resumed his pacing. "He's headed back home tomorrow. I gave him my cell number and the name of this place in case he came up with something..." He trailed off as he sat back down on the bed next to Mac. He picked up a picture of the admiral holding his granddaughter on his shoulder. Staring hard, Harm willed the image to tell him something, anything that would help make sense of what had happened. Unfortunately, he image of AJ Chegwidden proved to be just as stubborn as the real thing, so he finally dropped the picture back down with the others.

"Hey," Mac's voice was soft as she ran her hand up and down his arm. It felt cool and soothing against his skin, warmed from his shower. "We'll figure this out. We're Batman and Robin remember? We always win." She grinned at him when he couldn't hold back a smile at the reference.

Taking her hand off his arm, he kissed her palm, wrinkling his nose slightly when he caught a whiff of regurgitated baby formula. "Why don't you go hop in the shower while I put this stuff up. Then, my dear," he gave her a wicked smile and a wiggle of his eyebrow, "we go to bed."

Shaking her head, Mac laughed at his silliness and stood up to head for the bathroom. "If you think you're gonna get any action after you just insinuated that I stink, you've got another thing coming mister."

Harm's smile disappeared as the bathroom door closed behind her. He hated feeling useless, and that was exactly how he felt at that moment. He wanted to be out questioning witnesses and intimidating thugs, getting answers. That was his nature, finding the truth and bringing the bad guys to justice. Why was this case, one that he should be going after with a vengeance, so different? Clenching and unclenching his fists, he glanced down at the photograph covered bed. His eyes were drawn to the picture that Mac showed him earlier. He picked it up, his finger tracing the yellow bow on top of the baby's pretty little head.

She was why.

It hit him like a wrecking ball, swinging back and hitting him once again for good measure. Saturday morning the need to rip into this investigation like a pit bull out for blood had consumed him. 'Random terrorist attack my ass' he thought bitterly. He had a list of people who owed him favors and he had planned on cashing in on as many as necessary to get to the people responsible for the death of his friend.

Then Mac plopped nine pounds of baby in his arms and his whole world shifted. In fact, if he were to be totally honest, it had begun the night before at the hotel in D.C. Once it sank in that he and Mac were really going to do this, really become this innocent little person's parents, his entire decision making process was altered irrevocably. Everything else was pushed to the back burner. His family came before anything and everything. Until he had Sophie and Mac back in D.C. safe and sound and away from the ugliness that had marred the baby girl's life recently, he couldn't focus on anything else. He wanted to take his fiancée and their daughter home.

Harm smiled a genuine smile as that thought flittered though his mind. 'Our daughter,' his smile turned to goofy grin. He looked at picture after picture of Sophie as he began placing them back in the storage bin Mac had emptied them out of. There was no doubt in his mind that, given the choice, the admiral would want his granddaughter to be made top priority, and that was exactly what he was going to do. He still wanted justice, he'd still kick Webb's ass if he tried to go back on their deal. But Sophie and Mac came first.

He looked up as the bathroom door opened. Mac walked out in one of his larger tee shirts, toweling off her hair. She looked up and stopped short when she saw him. "What's with the silly smile Flyboy?" she asked playfully, yet curiously.

"Just happy to be me I guess," he replied, reclining on the bed and jerking his head to indicate that she should join him. Chuckling, she crawled over top of him on all fours and collapsed on his other side, her head landing comfortably on his bare chest. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder and began running his fingers tips through the damp hair at her temple.

"This parenting stuff is exhausting," she mumbled as she relaxed into the embrace.

"I think we're up to the challenge," he stated confidently, brushing his lips across her forehead.

"Well of course, you have the Marines on your side…piece of cake," she tilted her head back to wink at him.

Harm caught her chin with one hand while the other moved from her temple to tangle in her hair. He pressed his mouth to hers, gently nipping and teasing at first. The kiss became more passionate as her lips parted with a moan of pleasure. Pulling back slowly some time later, he smiled at the dazed look on his lover's face.

Mac dropped her forehead onto his chest and groaned. "I hope you plan on sticking around, because you've ruined me for all other men for the rest of my life," she informed him very matter-of-factly.

Smirking like only a jet jock could, Harm leaned back and stretched his arms up lazily before bringing his hands down and linking his fingers behind his head. "Yeah," he began cheekily, "What can I say?" He looked down at Mac, her hands stacked palms down on his chest with her chin resting on top. "I'm a god among men."

Basking in his own pride, his pilot reflexes failed him when Mac went in for the dreaded nipple pinch.

"Yeouch! Hey!" he swiftly brought one hand down to cover the offended appendage, looking down at his fiancée in indignation.

She immediately pouted her lips at him and apologized sweetly.

"I'm sorry babe." She moved his hand and kissed her way across his chest to the wounded area, never breaking their eye contact. It was his turn to moan as she reached her goal.

Reaching up behind him and to his left, he cut the lights and rolled over, pinning her body to the mattress and her hands above her head. "You're gonna pay for that Marine."

"Bring it on, Navy."

Oh yeah, the challenge had been issued, and he was more than willing to answer. His last thought before thinking became too much of a distraction was of how they'd never have to worry about a boring sex life.

TBC

A/N: I realized while doing my last read through of this chapter that anything Francesca wrote probably would have been in Italian... but I didn't feel like changing anything. So just for chapter 8, we're going to pretend, much like they do in cartoons, soap operas, and Star Trek, that eveyone speaks English LOL.


	10. Chapter 9

Chapter 9  
May 23, 2006  
0547 Local

Sarah MacKenzie was sleeping the sleep of the dead. It had been months since she'd been able to rest so thoroughly. When she heard it, very faint and far off, she just retreated farther into REM sleep, letting her subconscious dream up illogical explanations for the out of place buzzing noise. When the earth began moving beneath her as well, she couldn't deny reality any longer.

Coming out of her slumber in stages, she first realized that she was sprawled face down across Harm's chest…a lovely way to wake up at any hour…and that it was he, and not the earth, that was stirring. Next, she became aware of the fact that the buzzing was coming from somewhere behind her. Harm's cell phone on the night stand, the small, alert part of her brain supplied to the more sluggish dominant side. She felt herself being shifted onto her back as Harm rolled toward the source of the persistent sound.

"Wazgoinon," she finally slurred, eyes still stubbornly closed, when she felt Harm stretch across her body to reach out for his phone.

"Dunno," he mumbled before flipping the phone open. "H'lo?"

Mac heard the chatter coming for the other side of the wireless connection, but she couldn't make out words, so she lay patiently, waiting for Harm to finish up so she could slip back into unconsciousness.

"What?" Harm sat up abruptly, taking the blanket with him and leaving Mac both chilled and spooked. She snapped her eyes open and watched as he turned away from her to swing his feet onto the hotel's tacky green carpet. Reaching down, she grabbed the sheet that had fallen to the side and pulled it up and around her body for warmth as she sat up behind him. She rested her hand on his shoulder. The muscles there, relaxed in sleep just seconds ago, were tight as steel. His whole demeanor radiated tension.

"Harm, who is it," she asked in a more lucid voice. She heard him suck in a breath and her fingers flexed, the tips pressing into his skin.

"So everyone's…" he was cut off by the chattering voice on the other end. Whatever the voice said must have been what Harm was hoping to hear, because Mac immediately felt his shoulder muscles loosen up. "Okay, we'll be there ASAP." He flipped the phone shut and jumped out of bed.

"Someone broke into Francesca's place," he explained quickly as he grabbed his boxers off the floor and pulled them on, his head swiveling around, looking for the rest of his clothing. "That was Webb, he's there now. The place is trashed; they tore up everything, but Albina and the baby are fine." He looked up at her, his jeans on and unbuttoned and his shirt hanging from his hand.

Mac was still sitting on the bed with the sheet wrapped around herself. She gripped it tightly in her fist, trying to force herself to react to what Harm was telling her. She was sure she was just dreaming. It was just another illogical explanation to the buzzing noise she'd heard. Only, she knew that wasn't right. The slamming of her heart told her she was definitely awake right now.

Suddenly Harm was there, sitting on the side of the mattress and taking her hand. Mac started slightly. She hadn't remembered him walking around to this side of the bed, or putting on his shirt for that matter. "Hey," he smiled at her reassuringly, "she's okay Mac. Sophie's perfectly fine."

Mac nodded. "Yeah," she replied, her voice sounding hoarse, so she cleared her throat. "Yeah, we need to get over there," looking dazed, she began swinging her head around trying to locate her underwear.

Once, dressed Harm guided her to the car with a hand on her arm. She was silent on the cab ride to Francesca's, staring out the window at the city's nightlife. She was numb, could barely feel Harm's hand wrapped around her own. She felt herself slipping into self-preservation mode, and couldn't, or wouldn't, do anything to prevent it. She knew logically that the baby was fine. Harm wouldn't have lied to her about that, and Webb certainly wouldn't lie to him. Harm would kick his ass. Mac's lips turned up slightly at the thought. Still, her heart refused to let her relax until she saw with her own eyes that everything was okay.

Turning the corner, Mac expected to see the usual bedlam that accompanied a crime scene; police cars, red and blue lights flashing, yellow crime scene tape, crowds of morbidly curious civilians and troublesome reporters.

Nothing. From the outside of the building, you couldn't tell that anything was amiss. Brow furrowing in confusion, she turned to Harm. "I realize we aren't in the states, and things are probably done differently here, but where is everybody? Are we even at the right place?"

As if on cue, the front doors of the building opened and Clayton Webb exited briskly, waving at them with one hand while the second held his phone to his ear. Harm helped Mac out of the back of the cab and paid the driver before they headed over to the agent.

"What's going on Webb?" Mac asked immediately.

Webb snapped his cell shut, ushering them into the double doors and through the lobby toward the elevators. "Albina called me about an hour ago, saying that three men had broken into the apartment, held her at gun point and ransacked the place.

"Did they say who they were or what they were looking for?" Harm asked, concerned, as he hit the button for the top floor.

"No, she said that they pointed a gun at her, told her to keep the baby quiet, and locked them both in the nursery. She waited until she was sure they were gone, used her keys to unlock the door, and called me."

"Not the police?" Mac asked, trying to force her professional mask into place, despite the fact that she felt like a terrified mother just below the surface.

Webb shrugged. "I told her to call me if anything came up. I was thinking maybe she might come across something while packing. Apparently she thought that this situation also applied," he preceded Harm and Mac out of the elevator. "Frankly, I'm relieved she didn't contact the authorities first. I hate fighting over jurisdiction when I don't have home court advantage."

Upon entering the apartment, it finally became obvious a crime had, in fact, been perpetrated. There were about half a dozen or so people scurrying around at a frantic pace. The peaceful livingroom in which Mac had felt so relaxed only hours ago, where she had bonded with her new baby daughter, was now mercilessly demolished. Everything had been shattered beyond repair, making it impossible to avoid walking on the broken pieces of Francsesca's home. The furniture was gutted, stuffing pulled out and throw violently around the room. Glass littered the floor, crunching loudly with every step Mac took. Not a single picture frame or lamp had been spared.

Steadying her subtly when she stumbled over pieces of what used to be a beautiful coffee table, Harm pulled her deeper into the devastation. She couldn't help but flinch as they rounded into the diningroom and kitchen area. Everything had been pulled from the cupboards and thrown to the floor. If possible, there was even more broken glass in here than in the livingroom; plates, bowls and glasses smashed carelessly from one end of the kitchen to the other. The refrigerator had been emptied as well, covering the tiled floor with spilled milk, wine, and what looked like orange juice. There was also a sour, tangy smell in the air that Mac couldn't quite place.

More men and women were bustling through this room; and a small group was huddled over a computer monitor placed on the diningroom table, the only piece of furniture that had been spared as far as Mac could tell. Her eyes focused on one of Sophie's bottles, tossed haphazardly aside, a fraction of an inch from tumbling off the counter and into the puddle of formula on the soiled floor below. She watched as the last of the milky white substance continued to trickle from the bottle and down the side of the cabinet door.

Mac was vaguely aware of Webb introducing Harm to two of the agents at the table. It was then that she realized that, since stepping into the apartment, she hadn't really registered anything anyone had said. In fact, with the exception of the cacophony of glass grating against glass as she walked, sound was nothing more than a distant buzzing, not unlike the noise that woke her up barely half an hour ago.

Still feeling uncharacteristically dazed, she took two steps toward the table of men when her foot kicked something hard. Looking down, she watched as an empty pickle jar rolled away from her and across the hard floor. She was surprised at how it reverberated in her own ears when everything else seemed so muffled.

'Pickles, that's what that funny smell is' she thought idly as the jar came to rest where tile floor met carpet. 'Probably the only thing left unbroken in the whole place.'

"Mac?" Harm's concerned voice finally broke through her self-procured bubble of silence. Suddenly the air around her crackled with energy, all the voices now louder and more urgent. She looked around at the activity, feeling slightly discombobulated. Then she caught her fiancé's worried eyes. Suddenly her world righted itself. She almost heard the 'whoosh' as everything came crashing back into focus, and suddenly she felt like Marine Colonel MacKenzie again. It would forever amaze her how everything just seemed to snapped back into place with one glance, one word, from Harm.

"I'm okay," she assured him with a small smile. Before he could question her further, a distinctly unhappy cry cut through the air. Eyes wide, Mac's head pivoted sharply toward the source of the sound, then turned back to Harm.

"Harm…"

"Go on," he nodded to her in understanding, seemingly reading her mind. What she needed right then was to hold Sophie. He leaned forward and caught her upper arm lightly, kissing her quickly on the cheek, and whispered, "I'll be in in a minute."

"Albina and the baby are in the nursery, Sarah," Webb offered as she began backing out of the room. Throwing Clay a quick 'thank you' Mac was headed back through the livingroom, trying to ignore the damage that her mind would not soon let her forget. Instead, she focused on Sophie's cries, following the noise like a beacon.

She was practically running by the time she rounded the doorway leading into the baby's room. It was quite a contrast from what she'd just left behind. Nothing had been touched or disturbed in this room. The walls were a pale shade of yellow with a pink floral wallpaper border around the top. A white crib with the infamous Beyond the Sea mobile was set against the left wall, with plush letters spelling out 'Sophia' in soft colors arched above it. There was a changing table next to the door where Mac stood, and the smell of baby lotion and diaper rash cream was oddly comforting and calming to her senses.

Albina was standing with her back to Mac, off to the right by the pink, yellow, and green curtained window. A chest of draws was positioned on the wall next to her. It was white like the rest of the furniture, but with pink and green rosebud knobs attached. The only light in the room was coming from a small lamp centered on top. The portly housekeeper was whispering in Italian, trying to sooth the wailing infant.

"_Sono ragazza spiacente e piccola.. Cosi spiacente."_

"Albina?" Mac kept her voice low despite the volume of Sophie's cries. Turning quickly, the little old Italian woman smiled in recognition.

"Oh, look Miss Sophia, itsa Mama." Albina shuffled over to Mac and eagerly handed the squalling little girl over.

Mac's eyes went wide as the baby was deposited into her arms. Sophie's face was blood red; her eyes clenched shut with her efforts to make more noise than should be humanly possible for one so small. Her fists were flying out in all directions, as if she just wanted to hit something, anything, and her feet were kicking frantically inside her mint green sleeper.

"What's wrong with her?" Mac turned her wide eyes from the baby's angry face to Albina's sympathetic eyes and back again. She was calling on every scrap of her military training not to panic on the spot. She had been so sure she was ready for this, but she and Harm had been confronted with their first crisis as parents this morning and so far, she was falling apart like a first year recruit who couldn't cut boot camp. Struggling to hold on to the squirming bundle of joy, Mac began pacing and bouncing, something that always calmed little AJ down as an infant.

Albina began walking around the room, straightening up the changing table and folding blankets.

"Baby not hungry, not dirty, I think she justa upset," the housekeeper paused as she walked by the marine with the deer-in-the-headlights look and the baby who was now beginning arch her back with each scream. Smoothing Sophie's damp hair back from her forehead, Albina shook her head sorrowfully. "Poor little angel." Then she looked back up at Mac and patted her arm, "I go make bottle justa in case."

And just like that, Mac found herself standing alone in the middle of a sparsely lit nursery, barely keeping her grasp on a very unhappy, screaming baby. 'How the hell did this happen?' she wondered off handedly as she positioned Sophie up onto her shoulder, thus decreasing the chances of dropping the wiggling little siren.

"Shhh, baby, I know. I know. Mommy's here now, it's all over. Shhh..." Sophie continued to cry on Mac shoulder. Her face, wet with tears, was sticking to the side of Mac's neck. The poor little thing was too tired and upset to even try to lift her own head up. Mac began pacing around the room humming nonsense, her hand rubbing calming circles across Sophie's back, from neck to bottom.

"Baby girl, you're gonna have to help me out here. You've been at this mother-daughter stuff a few weeks longer than me."

It took the longest four minutes and twenty-eight seconds of Mac's life, but Sophie's screams finally started to settle into pitiful cries. They were just as heartbreaking to Mac, but not as ear piercing to those throughout the rest of the home.

"That's it Sophie, everything's okay, Mommy's got you." Before she was even aware of what she was doing, Mac began to sing softly, her mouth right next to her daughter's tiny ear.

_'I once loved a sailor, once a sailor loved me  
But he was not a sailor who sailed on the wide blue sea  
He sailed in an airship, sailed like a bird on a wing  
And every evening at midnight he would come to my window and sing..._

_Come take a trip in my airship, come sail away to the stars  
We'll travel to Venus, We'll sail away to Mars  
No one will see while we're kissing, no one will know as we swoon  
So come take a trip in my airship and we'll visit the man in the moon.'_

As Mac continued to sing, Sophie's struggles lessened. By the end of the song, the baby was sleeping fitfully, her breath still occasionally catching, expelling a little whimper from her slackened mouth. Mac silently treasured the warm puffs of air against her neck.

She sighed deeply, inhaling the baby powder smell from Sophie's head, allowing the feel and smell of her daughter to sooth her frayed nerves. Now that the baby crying crisis had passed, Mac let herself just hold her little one close. She'd been scared to death since the phone call earlier from Webb, and now that Sophie was safe in her arms, she could finally relax. Sinking into the rocking chair in front of the window, she leaned back and closed her eyes, one hand holding the baby under her butt, and the other pressing lightly on the back of her delicate head.

"Hey," she heard Harm's quiet voice from the doorway. She smiled without moving her head or opening her eyes.

"Somehow I knew you were standing there," Mac peeked at him through one cracked eyelid. "How long have you been standing there?"

"Long enough to have heard you're fun little sailor song," he teased her as he made his way into the room. "You seemed to be doing fine on your own. I didn't want to interrupt."

"Chicken," she accused as she stood up and met him half way.

"Seriously though," he said with a gleam in his eye as he stroked Sophie's soft hair, "cute song."

"I don't know what you're talking about," she replied stubbornly. The blush on her cheeks told another story.

Harm arched his eyebrow at her and 'hmph'ed before turning his attention back to little Sophie. "She okay?" he asked looking her over as well as he could with her tiny body curled up into a ball on Mac's shoulder. Her poor little face was stained with red blotches and damp from her tears. Her tiny hands had yet to relax, still clenched tightly into fists.

"She will be," Mac reassured him. "She could probably sense something was wrong. It must have scared her." Mac swayed back and forth, resuming the soft circles on the baby's back.

"Yeah," Harm agreed. "She just needed her mommy."

Mac looked up at Harm and smiled sweetly, tilting her head to brush her cheek against Sophie's hair.

"You look beautiful with her," he whispered as he lowered his lips for a kiss.

Mac pulled back just centimeters before contact was made. "Just with her?" she asked, her eyebrow arching slightly.

"Well," Harm screwed up his face on the pretense of thinking it over, "I guess your not so bad by yourself either." He smiled, as he leaned back in for his kiss.

"Huh," she replied, an enticing grin playing across her mouth, "that's not what you said last night, Flyboy." Her eyes locked onto his lips as they drifted closer. This time, she accepted the kiss, which was soft and gentle and smoldering all at the same time.

"Ahem."

Harm and Mac reluctantly broke apart as Webb sauntered into the room.

"Well, my people have just about finished up here. The clean up crew is going to come in and do what they can, which probably won't be much," Webb stood just inside the doorway with his hands in his pockets, casually studying the family in front of him. "Albina is going to stay at a hotel until her trip back to Palermo."

"Palermo?" Mac questioned as she handed the sleeping baby over to Harm, giving her arms a rest.

"I didn't realize that Albina lived so far. That's quite a trip. She's not driving is she?"

"No," Webb shook his head, his eyes following her as she sat back down in the rocking chair. "I believe she's flying out the day after tomorrow. She's been in contact with her sister, so I'm assuming they have made arrangements for her once she lands."

"Just as long as she's taken care of," Mac said as she watched Harm gaze contently at the infant in his arms. They really owed the older woman for protecting Sophie during the attack on Francesca's home.

"Well, can I assume also that the two of you will be staying here the rest of the morning?" Webb raised an amused eyebrow at the silly grin on Harm's face. All of the new father's attention was currently focused on his daughter.

"The lawyer is due to arrive here around noon, and the movers will be here sometime this afternoon to pack up Sophie's things and ship them out," Harm answered, his eyes still trained on Sophie. "Once we get them started, though, we'll probably head out for the night. Our flight is scheduled for tomorrow morning."

At the mention of going home, Harm briefly looked up and made eye contact with his fiancée. Mac returned his intense gaze until he broke the connection and turned his attention back to the sleeping child cradled in his arms. Her focus, however, did not waiver. The morning sun was beginning to peek through the nursery window, casting its warm, orangish light across father and daughter. They portrayed an almost divine image. Mac gave a sappy sigh then blushed heavily when she realized Webb had heard it. He raised an eyebrow and gave her a good-humored smirk and a wink.

"Well, I'm headed out to see what we've got on this mess. I'm delaying my return to the states for at least another day. I'll call you later this morning, Rabb, and let you know what we've got. Sarah," he gave a small bow of his head, and then he was gone.

"Well," Harm turned to face Mac after Webb disappeared from sight, "we should probably go ahead and get her packed up; so once we leave this afternoon, we don't have to come back." He began wandering around the nursery with Sophie still snuggled in his embrace, mentally categorizing everything that would need to go with them, and that which the movers would send straight through to La Jolla.

"What do Webb and company have so far?" Mac asked as her eyes followed his slow trip around the bedroom. She was more concerned with the latest on the investigation than anything else at the moment. 'Well, anything but Sophie,' she corrected herself.

"Not much so far," he tossed over his shoulder as he continued circling the nursery. He opened the closet door and stuck his head inside as Mac watched on in begrudged amusement. As fun as it was to witness him slipping into the roll of daddy and husband, she needed him to focus for a moment.

After a minute and a half, it became obvious to Mac that the fascinating contents of the baby's closet had distracted him from her own fact-finding mission. "Harm, snap to," she demanded, though not sharply as the words themselves would imply.

"Huh? Oh, sorry," Harm's pulled his head out of the closet and turned back toward Mac, clearing his throat. "The surveillance cameras at the back entrance were cut. How the security in a place like this missed something that significant is..." he trailed off, shaking his head before continuing. "They did get a description from a cabbie who saw a young male, mid twenties maybe, possible middle eastern decent, sitting in the drivers seat of a running van out behind the complex. Webb's going to call me with an update after he runs a search of known terrorist or terror suspects through the Company's database." He gave her a mischievous smile before adding, "I'm pretty sure that I'm officially in the need to know loop, whether Webb wanted it or not."

Mac narrowed her eyes and sat forward on the chair with her elbows on her knees. "What did you do?" she asked in a very deliberate tone.

"I just made sure that he understood that if it involves my child, it involves me." He looked down at the baby in his arms and continued in a softer voice, "Isn't that right, little Sophie…Daddy's gonna make sure you're safe from now on."

"Harrrrm..." Mac warned, standing up and approaching him slowly. He turned back to her and flashed her his best, biggest smile. Of course, she melted. "Play nice," was all she said, but even that was delivered with a warm smile of her own. She knew that the effect of her stern words was lost on him. It was okay though, because there was a small part of her that secretly thrilled when Harm made Clay squirm.

"Always," he replied cheekily before planting a swift, sloppy kiss on her lips. "Now, I do believe that your daughter needs to be changed," he said, wrinkling his nose playfully. "You want to do the honors, or would you rather check on Albina and Miss Sophie's breakfast?"

Not ready to leave the sanctuary of the undisturbed nursery, Mac reached out for the baby, who was beginning to stir. "You go. And you'd better hurry, Dad. I have a feeling she's gonna want that breakfast sooner rather than later."

"Aye, Ma'am," and he was out the door.

Mac spoke softly to the baby as her eyes began blinking open. "Did you hear that Sophie? Apparently, when you poop, you're _my_ daughter," she explained as she unfastened the first snap at the top of Sophie's sleeper. She continued down, pulling loose two small feet when she reached the final snap. "Don't worry, we'll have him diapering like a pro in no time. Won't we." She ran her finger down the baby's chubby neck to her shoulder, eliciting a toothless, dimpled grin and a wiggle from the sleepy-eyed little girl.

Mac finished changing and redressing Sophie, hoping Harm would make it back with a bottle soon. While her momentary feelings of self-doubt and inadequacy had passed, she didn't think she was ready for round two of 'How well do Sophie's lungs work?' quite yet. Tucking her hands under the child's armpits, Mac lifted her up and held the baby out in front of her; face to tiny, wobbling face. Seconds passed as mother and daughter studied each other.

"You're gonna give me gray hair, aren't you?"

Sophie gave her a crooked smile and a spit bubble.

TBC

_Come Take a Trip in My Airship_ is not mine, just like most everything else in this story. Full credits for the song will be listed at the end of the story.


	11. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

May 23, 2006  
2252 Local

Harm was hanging up the phone as Mac stepped out of the bathroom, fresh from her shower. He watched with a tender smile as she passed by Sophie's travel crib to check on the slumbering baby. She allowed her hand to rest on her little girl's warm back for a moment, before making her way over to their bed.

"Who was on the phone?" she asked as she leaned back against the headboard and closed her eyes.

"First it was the dog kennel where Damnit's being kept, then the airport, then Bud, and that was Tom Johnson just now."

"Did you get everything worked out?"

"Yeah, I'm going to go make arrangements for the dog tomorrow morning, then I'll come back here and pick you and Sophie up. Damnit will be flying home on our flight, then Bud or Harriet will pick us all up at the airport and take us back to their house," he smiled as he continued, "and Mattie was more than insistent that she and Tom pick Damnit up as early as possible so that she could properly drool over the baby."

"Doesn't she have school?" Mac asked with her eyes still closed.

"It's exam week, and she doesn't have any tomorrow or Thursday, so Tom couldn't come up with any excuses," Harm answered, amused at Tom's predicament. He had first hand experience with Mattie's stubborn streak when it came to authority figures. She wasn't a bad kid by any means, but when she set her mind to something that she considered important, no one was going to stand in her way. Her dad never stood a chance.

Glancing over at Mac when she didn't respond, he noticed that her eyes were still closed. Assuming that her exhaustion had finally won out, he headed to the bathroom to brush his teeth and change his clothes before sleep claimed him as well.

Hitting the lights to the bathroom a few minutes later, he tiptoed over to the bed only to find Mac still awake. She was sitting in the same spot on the bed staring out into nothing, the two wrinkles between her eyes indicating intense concentration. Her hands were resting in her lap with her index fingers steepled and tapping together profusely.

He sat down on 'his' side of the bed and grimaced as his back gave a sharp twinge; an aggravating reminder of all of the heavy lifting he'd done that afternoon. He leaned forward, resting one elbow on his leg and rubbing the small of his back with his other hand. He glanced over his shoulder at Mac.

"Penny for your thoughts?" he inquired softly, so as not to disturb Sophie.

"Huh? Oh, I was just thinking about the investigation," she waved her hand flippantly, offering no more in the way of an explanation.

She sat up, pulling her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. Her head tilted to one side as she flashed him a look of concern. "Hey, you okay? Is your back bothering you?"

"Just a bit," he replied, smiling tiredly at her. "Lots of lifting today."

"Here, lie down," Mac pulled her legs under her and kneeled up on the mattress beside Harm. She gently pushed his shoulders toward the foot of the bed so that he was lying flat on his stomach. Straddling his hips and sitting back on his six, she began molding the skin and muscles of his lower back.

Resting his head on his forearms, Harm hummed quietly in appreciation. He let himself enjoy her wonderful ministrations for a couple of minutes before re-addressing the cause of her previously distracted state.

"Clay called while you were in the shower. They still aren't having any luck matching anyone on record with the person that our witness described. Granted, it wasn't much of a description to go on." Harm could hear the frustration in his own voice. Truth was, with Webb's limited support from the Agency, Harm wasn't sure how much more time they had to work with. Once Webb was pulled off the case, Harm's involvement would be severed right along with him.

Mac continued with his massage, a noncommittal grunt the only indication that she'd heard what he'd said. Her small hands were soft and smooth as they glided and pressed on the abused extensor muscles at the base of his spine. She knew just the right amount of pressure to exert and where he needed it the most. As his eyes began to drift shut, he finally let his mind unwind, leaving reality behind for just a moment. Slowly he felt himself relax for the first time all day.

"Harm, exactly how good is your Italian?"

His eyes popped open, unprepared for the off the cuff question. Giving a barely detectable shrug, he attempted to turn around in order to catch a glimpse of her face, but she held him in place, never ceasing her manipulations. It felt too good to argue, so Harm just relented, settling back onto the mattress before answering her question.

"Just good enough to get around here without too much help," he smiled slightly. "But my mom is fluent. She learned when she began making regular business trips over here for the gallery. I picked up a few things from her. Why?"

"Do you know the phrase..." she paused unsurely, her pushing and kneading finally slacking off some, becoming more of a relaxing back rub. He could picture her face, strained in concentration, struggling with one of the few languages she didn't know. "Um, _'Sono rag...ragazza spiacente'_..." He heard her whisper the first part of the phase to herself a couple of time, trying to jog her own memory. Finally she finished out loud, "_'Spiacente e piccola'. _Do you know what that means?"

Harm thought for a minute, pulling up ancient memories of his mother forcing him to practice a foreign language that he had no interest in learning. Now he wished he had paid more attention.

"I think it's an apology," he began. "'At least, I know 'spiacente' means sorry. And I'm pretty sure that 'ragazza' is girl and 'piccola' is small. So, 'I'm sorry small girl'?"

"Or baby girl," Mac mused almost to herself, her hands now a comforting caress against the skin on his back.

"Why? Where'd you hear that?"

"It's what Albina was saying to Sophie when I found them in the nursery this morning. She kept repeating it."

"So, what, you think that Albina did something to the baby?" Harm abruptly rolled over onto his back, grabbing Mac's forearms to keep her balanced and off the floor. "Do you think that's why Sophie was so upset?" Disbelief and concern were warring for control as he stared intently at Mac, who was now perched on his thighs.

Mac placed a soothing hand on his chest and patted, smiling at him calmly. "No, I don't think she hurt Sophie. Power down, Superdad."

He nodded, relieved that it was his disbelief that was validated. "So what are you saying?" He watched as his fiancée looked away, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. She seemed to be debating whether or not to tell him what was on her mind.

He sat up, supporting himself on one arm with Mac still in his lap. He used his free hand to push some hair out of her face so they could look each other in the eye. "Alright, Marine, let's have it."

"Okay, okay," she rolled her eyes, but smiled warmly at him before beginning. "You're gonna think I'm crazy, but have Webb's men checked out Albina? I mean, really checked her out, not just her references."

He raised his eyebrows high on his forehead. Was Mac implying that Albina had something to do with AJ and Francesca's deaths? "Um, I don't know. I know that they checked out her employment background, just to make sure she was what she said she was."

Mac nodded as though this was the answer she expected.

"Why, what are you thinking?" he asked.

"Something's been bothering me since the movers showed up this afternoon. Do you remember having to help the tall one, Tonio, move the rocking chair out of the nursery?"

"Yeah," he replied slowly, "it was too heavy for just one man. The two of us almost needed a third guy to lift it into the truck." It was, most likely, the awkward gliding contraption that had triggered his back spasms earlier.

"That chair was in the livingroom when we left the house last night. Remember? We fed Sophie in that chair." At his affirmative answer she continued. "Anyway, I didn't think much of it until I realized this afternoon while watching you, just how difficult it was to move," she looked pointedly at Harm, "way too heavy for a little old woman to move on her own..."

"So how did it end up in the nursery this morning," Harm finished, finally following her line of thought. He sat up more fully and Mac slipped back off his lap. The severing of their physical connection, however, did nothing to weaken their intellectual one. Faces still inches apart; Harm never broke eye contact as he searched his mind for possible explanations.

"Maybe the men who broke in moved it for her." He knew how unlikely that was immediately.

"Maybe..." she conceded warily, "but Harm, you saw that house. How conscientious do you think these men were? They destroyed Francesca's home. After they killed her. And her father. And her baby's father. But they are going to take the time to move a rocking chair, a very heavy rocking chair, for an elderly woman with an infant, whom they are supposedly terrorizing?"

"Is it possible that it could have been moved in there by an agent afterwards?" Harm screwed his face up questioningly. They both knew that was against standard procedure for investigating a crime scene.

Mac shook her head. "I don't think so. Everything, with the exception of the nursery furniture, was smashed. Why would they have left the rocking chair alone?" She went on as if presenting him with a closing argument, "At the very least, if it had survived, it would have been covered in glass and debris. Not a good thing to drag into a baby's room."

"Yeah, it makes no sense. Unless..."

"Unless Albina knew the men that broke in," Mac continued his thought.

"In which case," he concluded, "they wouldn't think twice about moving the chair for her, to make her more comfortable."

Harm pinched his bottom lip between his thumb and forefinger thoughtfully. He sighed deeply after a moment and moved his hand away from his mouth to point at Mac. "Okay, but do you honestly believe that this little old lady is involved with a terrorist group?"

It was Mac's turn to shrug her shoulders. She moved to sit back in her original position against the headboard. "I've seen stranger. She was the only other one around yesterday when Webb told us that the portfolio found at the scene of the explosion was empty. Then last night, after two weeks, suddenly Francesca's place is ransacked? That, and the apology to Sophie...Harm..."

She really didn't need to say anything else. The evidence was beginning to speak for itself. "Alright," he sighed, moving to slump down beside her on the bed. "I'll call Webb."

He reached for the bedside phone just as Sophie decided it was feeding time. Harm watched with a grin as Mac hopped off the bed and headed over to the baby.

"Hey little one," she said in that singsong voice that Harm was quickly falling in love with. "You ready to eat?"

He was so content to watch his new little family that he almost missed the curt "Webb" on the other side of the line.

"Webb, it's Harm," he said, watching Mac grab a full bottle from the mini fridge and head toward him, holding the baby out for him to take. He tucked the phone between his ear and shoulder and accepted Sophie. Mac then motioned to the bottle in her hand, and then to the bathroom. Harm's brow winkled and he shook his head slightly to communicate that he didn't know what she was trying to say.

"We don't have anything more for you Harm," Webb grumbled irritably.

Ignoring his questioning look, Mac headed into the bathroom, leaving Harm sitting on the bed with a grumpy spook on the phone and a hungry baby in his lap.

"Yeah, well, I think we may have something for you," Harm began filling Webb in on Mac's suspicions as he bounced Sophie on his shoulder. While she wasn't crying out right, the noises that were coming from the infant definitely weren't happy ones.

"So, you two think that that sixty some year old woman is behind all this?"

Taking a deep breath, Harm told himself to ignore Webb's snippy attitude. He shifted Sophie to cradle her in one arm, tucking her pacifier back in her mouth, and switched the phone to his other ear. From the bathroom, he heard the sink turn on.

"No, not behind…involved maybe…you have to admit it's fishy." When Webb didn't immediately deny this, Harm pushed forward. "Is there a possibility that one of your people moved the chair for her?" he asked diplomatically.

Webb scoffed. "Not unless they want to end up in the basement of Langley sorting mail the rest of their career."

"Well then," Harm went on, "do you think maybe you could find out when Albina was hired by Francesca?" He winced, hearing his traitorous voice slip from patient to patronizing before her could stop it.

Fortunately, Webb's only response was a sigh of reluctant cooperation. "Hold on," the agent commanded. Harm looked down at Sophie, who had contented herself with sucking on her favorite pacifier for the time being. He made some funny faces at the little girl, hoping to stave off the tears that her big, liquid brown eyes looked ready to release

He glanced up to see Mac smiling at him from the bathroom door. He noticed her empty hands and asked, "Where's the bottle?"

"What?" Webb's voice sounded distracted.

"Not you Clay," Harm rolled his eyes. Looking back up, he raised his eyebrows, waiting for an answer.

"I filled the sink with hot water to heat up the formula," Mac explained as she walked over to the bed with a diaper in one hand and a tub of baby wipes in the other. She set the items on the nightstand and reached down to tickle Sophie's belly. The baby squirmed around, instinctively curling her little legs up to protect herself from her mommy's wiggling fingers.

"Hey Harm..." Webb called, his voice more focused than it was a few seconds ago. "Albina was hired a month before the baby was born. Less than two weeks after Greg Mason handed the papers to Paul Jordan."

The silly expression Harm had been using to entertain Sophie melted from his face as he gave Webb his full attention. Mac apparently noticed the sudden shift from father to investigator, and reached over for the baby.

"You think she was planted there to keep an eye on Paul?" Harm handed his daughter over distractedly as he waited for an answer. This time it was Mac who shot the questioning look. He nodded, acknowledging her silent inquiry and asking for her patience with just that one gesture. She seemed to read him perfectly and turned her attention to more pressing matters; namely, the funky smell emanating from Sophie's diaper.

"Shit," Webb muttered, "if that's the case, then she also knows that we don't know the details of the attack..."

"And if she told them..."

"Then they'll definitely attempt to carry it out. Damn. Look, let me check this out. I'll order a more in depth background check on her. She's not due to leave town until the day after tomorrow anyway," Harm could tell that Webb was ready to wrap up their little tLte-B-tLte. "I'll call you when I get the results."

"Tomorrow will do just fine," Harm corrected. They had all had a long, trying day. Already exhausted, he knew that the baby would be up at least twice more before morning. He didn't think that they need any interruptions between feedings. "I'll be headed to the kennel around nine-thirty,"

"Fine, I'll be in touch." Then the call abruptly ended and Harm wasn't sure if he was insulted or relieved. Placing the phone back in the cradle, he turned back to Mac and Sophie.

"You know, Daddy," she began before he could say anything, "eventually you're gonna have to do one of these too." Finishing up the snaps between the legs of Sophie's pink and white onesie, she looked up at Harm with a sickeningly sweet smile and handed him the little purple plastic bag containing one poopy diaper. He accepted it with the trepidation of someone who was asked to hold a live grenade. She laughed at the look on his face. "It's secure Sailor, I promise."

He swung his arm around, keeping a decent distance between the diaper and his face, and dropped the offending item in the bedside trash.

"Watch her," she nodded to the baby lying on a blanket on the bed. "I'm gonna wash my hands and grab her bottle." As she stood up and headed toward the bathroom, she asked, "So, what'd Webb say?"

"Well, he was a little skeptical in the beginning," he said, as he played with Sophie's bare little foot. "Then he checked Albina's date of hire. It was less than two weeks after Paul Jordan returned to Italy from his conference."

"So, what, she's sent in to see if Jordan has the file?" She walked back into the room with a warmed baby bottle. "Who the hell is she? How is a sixty-plus-year old Italian housekeeper slash nanny involved with Al Qaeda?"

"Hey, this was your wild theory this time, not mine," he replied in jest.

"Ha-ha," she shot back, her nose scrunched up at him good-naturedly. She settled back on the bed with her knees bent up and the baby leaning back against her legs. Popping the pacifier out of Sophie's mouth, Mac replaced it with the nipple of the bottle quickly to prevent any verbal objections from her daughter.

Harm slid down on the bed and rested his chin on Mac shoulder, the two of them watching, captivated, as Sophie enjoyed her midnight snack. For her part, Sophie stared at her new parents intently, focusing as best as her young eyes would allow while sucking eagerly at her bottle. Harm reached a finger out and swiped at a drop of formula that dribbled down from the corner of her mouth.

"She's adjusting to all of this extremely well considering all the changes she's been through recently," he remarked, running his hand up and down Mac's arm from elbow to shoulder.

"You know what I think," Mac said softly, stroking the smooth skin on the baby's cheek and running her hand over her dark hair. "I think that she knows that we're here to take care of her. She feels safe and loved. And that's what's most important to her right now." Harm watched Mac's hand stroke Sophie's hair rhythmically. The little girl's eyes were beginning to droop, even as she continued to eat vigorously.

"She must have been so scared this morning," she whispered. "All that noise and violence. She shouldn't have had to witness that." Mac shuddered slightly; remembering the vicious way that the apartment had been demolished.

"Hey," Harm turned his head toward her neck, planting a kiss on her warm skin, and whispered in her ear, "She's fine now. She's here with us. And as you just so astutely pointed out, this is where she feels safe…with us." He turned his head back toward Sophie, who was still struggling to keep her eyes open. "You hear that Princess?" he asked, nudging her little hand with his finger and smiling when she gripped it tightly. "Everything is going to be okay now. Daddy promises."

As if she was just waiting for his reassurance, Sophie let her eyes slip shut, her mouth going slack around the nipple; Mac jiggled it slightly and the sucking recommenced, but her eyes remained closed. For a moment, the only noises in the room were the grunts and slurps coming from the little girl's mouth.

"It's humbling, how trusting she is of us already." Harm's whisper carried a note of awe. He felt Mac sigh contently against him and he turned his face into her hair, breathing in her scent. He smiled when he realized that while her unique 'Mac' smell was still present, it was now intermingled with a new fragrance; a mixture of baby lotion and talcum powder. Closing his own eyes and inhaling the new aroma once again, Harm was taken aback by the feelings that washed over him, positive in that moment that he'd just fallen even deeper in love with her.

As if reading his thoughts, he heard Mac whisper, "We love you too, Flyboy."

TBC


	12. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

May 24, 2006  
1545 Local

"So, do you really think that the nanny was involved with the bomb that killed the admiral, Sir?"

"Bud," Harm warned, eyes facing forward and a smile playing on his lips. Sitting beside Sophie in the middle bench seat of the Robert's minivan, Mac smirked as well. They'd be old and gray and bedridden before Bud finally started using their first names without being prompted…if then.

"Sorry, Harm. Old habits die exceptionally hard deaths with me. Gruesome even," Bud tossed a self-depicting smile at Harm before turning his eyes back to the road. "Seriously though, do you really think she was involved?"

Mac marveled at how, even as a lieutenant commander in the Navy and a man who had fathered five children, Bud's voice could still sometimes make him sound like the guileless, wide-eyed young lieutenant j.g. he was when she first met him.

"I think it's possible," Harm glanced at the younger man through his dark-tinted sunglasses. "I'll know more when Webb calls. Until then, I'm just glad to be back on home soil." He threw a full watt grin over his shoulder at Mac, and she couldn't help the warm, tingly feeling that shot up her spine. He'd been in an exceptionally good mood all morning, finding all kinds of reasons to touch her, wink at her, smile for her. It was a mood she could get use to very quickly.

"How about you, Ma'a...ac," Bud stumbled out.

"It was my theory," she pointed out, shrugging her eyebrows at the back of his head.

"Unbelievable," he muttered as he navigated the minivan into the driveway of his home. "Not that I don't believe you, of course," he hastily added, catching Mac' eye in the rear view mirror. She smiled warmly in silent reply.

As the van came to a halt, Mac noticed the pickup park on the street in front of the house. "Tom and Mattie are here already?" They'd spent the entire trip from the airport filling Bud in on the events in Italy, never getting around to anything going on back here in the states.

"Yes," Bud confirmed with a chuckle as pulled his keys from the ignition. "She's been bouncing off the walls since they arrived a couple of hours ago."

Leaving their bags in the car for the time being, Harm helped Mac maneuver the baby seat out of the back of the van. He then moved to get Damnit out of her crate in the rear.

"Jen's here also," Bud continued as he reached into the car and pulled out Sophie's diaper bag. "The General allowed her to secure early. She's been almost as bad as Mattie."

"Bud, you don't have…" Mac began, holding her hand out to take the bag.

Brushing her off, Bud smiled sincerely. "Not a problem, Ma'am," he assured, swinging the bag up over his shoulder and leading the way up the front sidewalk.

Mac shook her head and smiled, not bothering to correct the 'ma'am' this time. She followed Bud up to the front porch with Sophie, Harm trailing behind, letting the dog take care of her business.

Opening the door, Bud hollered playful, "Honey, we're home!" and the aforementioned home erupted with the sound of footsteps. Harriet was the first to arrive, coming out of the kitchen and giving Harm and Mac both a welcoming hug. Mattie and Jen appeared from the den just seconds later. Tom wandered out of the kitchen behind Harriet, his pace noticeably more languid than the rest.

"Is that her?" Mattie asked unnecessarily.

"Look at how little she is," Jen gushed.

While Bud lead Tom, Harm and Damnit out to the back patio, Mac lead the women into the livingroom, setting Sophie down on the coffee table. Unbuckling the baby from her restraints, Mac pulled her up and turned toward her captivated audience. "Everyone, this is Sophia Rachele Peretti, soon to be Rabb." She could feel the smile splitting her face as she presented her daughter for the first time. It was a kind of elation that she'd never felt before.

"Oh my gosh," Harriet sighed, "will you look at how pretty she is!" Her left hand rested over her heart while her right brushed across one soft baby leg, her eyes suspiciously moist. "May I?" she requested, holding her arms out eagerly.

"Of course," Mac nodded, carefully handing Sophie over. "Go see Aunt Harriet, Sweetpea."

"I'm next," Mattie stated in no uncertain terms.

Laughing, Mac took the baby bag that Bud had dropped by the couch and pulled out a bottle. "I'll do you one better," she offered the teenager. "I'm gonna go heat this up, and then you can feed _and_ burp her." She meant the comment as tongue-in-cheek, but the way Mattie's face lit up, Mac knew the girl was pleased.

She headed for the kitchen to heat the bottle before Sophie remembered that she hadn't eaten in almost four hours. Making her way to the sink, Mac grabbed an oversized cup from the cabinet above the coffee machine and filled it with water. She smiled to herself as she listened to the murmurs and laughter coming from the other room. Taking the cup out of the microwave after a minute and a half, she dropped Sophie's bottle into the hot water and waited.

Mac heard Harm approach before she felt his arms wrap around her from behind. Tilting her head to the side, she granted his lips access to her neck for just a moment before turning around and draping her arms over his shoulders. A lazy smile graced her face as an outburst of 'awh's drifted in from the livingroom.

"I think we have a little 'social butterfly' on our hands," she said playfully, her fingertips running through the stubbly hair at the base of his neck.

"Of course. Would you expect anything less?" Harm returned her smile. "She is our child after all." He bent down to kiss her properly when they heard the sound of scurrying little feet headed their way.

"Are you guys kissing again?"

Harm's head made a detour, his forehead landing on her shoulder and a groan escaping his lips. She laughed lightly, her fingers continuing to play with his hair, noting idly that he was due for a trim soon. She turned to look at her godsons, both wearing smirks that would have made Clayton Webb proud. If she didn't know any better, she'd swear that they knew exactly what they were interrupting.

"Can we help you, gentlemen?" she asked with a raise of an eyebrow. Harm snorted into her shoulder before straightening up to look over at AJ and Jimmy.

"Did you b'ing a baby 'ome?" Jimmy asked inquisitively, looking curiously around the kitchen as though he thought he'd find her under the table, or possibly in the sink.

"We sure did," Harm answered, striding over to the youngsters and swooping Jimmy up in his arms. "Would you like to go see her?" Jimmy nodded his head vigorously, his chubby arms wrapped tightly around his Uncle Harm's neck.

Mac turned to AJ. "How about you big guy? Do you want to go meet Sophie?" She moved to follow Harm out of the kitchen, placing her arm around AJ's little shoulders as she went.

AJ's response was a little less enthusiastic than his brothers. "Sure," he replied, and she felt his shoulders raise and drop in a shrug as he allowed her to lead him out of the kitchen. "But I don't see what the big deal is. Mom's bringing new babies home all the time."

Mac choked on a gasp and swatted AJ on the bottom good-naturedly. "AJ Roberts!" she admonished, not able to completely force the laughter from her voice.

"What?" he turned his face up innocently to look at her. "It's true. I don't tell lies, Aunt Mac."

Mac opened and shut her mouth, really not sure how to respond to that. Once again, the kid did have a point.

The foursome made there way into the livingroom where Jen was currently swaying back and forth with little Sophie in her arms and Mattie glued to her side. Harm set Jimmy down and the toddler skipped over to join his parents on the couch. Mac sat down on the love seat with Tom, smiling knowingly as she watched Harm make a beeline for his daughter.

"She's just beautiful, Sir, Colonel," Jen craned her neck to see Mac around the tall captain as he adjusted the blanket around his baby girl.

"Thanks Jen. I actually think she looks a little like the admiral," she smiled warmly despite the melancholy that crept in her voice.

Jen's eyes watered slightly as she and Sophie stared speculatively at one another. "I can see that," the young woman finally responded. "She has more hair, though," she continued in a lighter tone, looking up to return Mac's smile.

Mattie sighed as Sophie let out a yawn that practically encompassed her entire face. "I want one," the high-schooler stated dreamily.

"Excuse me?" Tom spit out, at the same time Harm exclaiming, "I don't think so!"  
Jen was unsuccessful in swallowing down her giggles.

"Not _now_!" Mattie scoffed defensively. "Geez, did you see me with that crying, peeing...doll thingy from my Life Planning class last year? No thanks." Looking at her 'fathers' disapprovingly she added, "Give me a little credit."

Mac, who was having a bit more luck than Jen at holding her laughter in check, was watching on in amusement as two grown men with matching crimson faces stumbled over each other's words trying to redeem themselves. A series of 'um's,' 'uh's,' and embarrassed coughs, with a few panicked looks traded for good measure, were all they could manage.

"Never mind," Mattie held up a hand and rolled her eyes. "Dads," she sighed dramatically and with an overburdened air.

"Hey Mats," Mac cleared her throat of any lingering laughter, "why don't you go check to see if her bottle's ready yet. She should be demanding it any time now."

"Sure thing," and with that, the carefree teen was back to her previous, exuberant self, bouncing her way into the kitchen

"Daddy," AJ asked from his place beside Mac, "why can't Mattie have a baby?"

"Be...because babies are...are for grownups," Bud explained, looking at the rest of the adults with a helpless shrug.

"So," Harriet clapped her hands together once, sharply, to get everyone attention. Mac breathed a sigh of relief. She didn't think the male egos in the room could handle much more embarrassment. "Sturgis is going to stop by on his way home to meet this little one," she reached up to where Jen was standing and grabbed Sophie's foot, giving it a shake. "I think Tiner might be joining him."

"Victor is going to stop by as well," Jen spoke up, gazing intently at the baby in her arms. Mac traded a looked with Harm, her eyebrows raised and her lips pursed curiously. He mimicked her expression, both of them glancing over at Harriet. If anyone knew anything, it would be Harriet. However, the east coast's very own 'gossip queen' looked very out of the loop at the moment. Before anyone could ask, Mattie came bounding back into the room.

"_Ooooh, Viiictor_," she singsonged teasingly, eliciting a glare from Jen. Turning away from her former roommate, she handed the bottle to Mac. "I think it's okay, but you might want to double check and make sure."

Nodding, Mac squeezed a couple of drops of formula onto the inside of her forearm. Most of her attention, though, was focused on Jen. The young woman glanced around the room, realizing that all eyes were now on her and not the baby she was holding. Blushing slightly, she followed Mattie over to the armchair next to the Mac and Tom and handed her the baby when she was settled.

"The Gunny and I had a nice time Saturday night," she explained measuredly. Turning away from Mattie and Sophie she faced the rest of the group with her arms loosely crossed. "He asked what I was doing tonight; I told him, he wanted to come," she stated simply, but with a hint of a grin.

Mac and Harriet exchanged one more look before Nicki and Nate demanded attention from upstairs, effectively ending the conversation

"Ah, I was wondering when they were going to grace us with their presence," Harriet stood up. "I'll be back."

"I'll help," Mac offered. She stood and pivoted, leaning down in front of Mattie to kiss Sophie's head. Then she turned and winked at Harm before following Harriet up the stairs.

"So," began Harriet once they were on the second floor, "have you guys decided what to do about the hotel situation?" Mac had discussed with Harriet earlier the complications of staying in a hotel for a week with an infant. Of course she and Bud had offered their pull out couch in the den, but with four children and two adults already, Harm and Mac were hesitant to impose.

"Actually, we have," Mac said as they headed into the twins' room. "We're going to stay at the house in McLean." She went to Nate's bed and pulled the sniffling tot up into her arms and headed to the changing table.

"You don't think it'll feel a little, you know," Harriet waved her hand absently as she made her way to Nicki's crib with a new diaper, "…weird. I mean since he's gone."

"Possibly," Mac admitted. She'd said as much to Harm when he came up with the idea. "But it's the most logical solution. We talked to Marcia Crosby and she's arranging to have the water and electricity turned on, so it'll be much easier to take care of Sophie's needs there than at a hotel. Plus, if we're there all week, we can pack up more efficiently." She finished changing Nate's diaper and began redressing him, humoring his game of grabbing and pulling her hands while she tried to button his shirt.

"Yeah, I suppose that does make the most sense," Harriet conceded as she changed Nicki's clothes from the little girl's crib.

For the next couple of minutes the only noises in the room were the twins babbling their nonsensical words. Mac was amused to realize that when one twin would finish a stream of baby talk, the other would respond with more gibberish, or a giggle, from across the room.

"So," Harriet began after a moment, "Jen and Victor. Very interesting."

Mac shook her head, a knowing smile on her face, as she pulled Nate up into her arms and turned toward her friend.

"What?" Harriet inquired over her shoulder, apparently catching Mac's expression.

"Nothing, nothing," Mac answered innocently, shaking her head slightly. "I just hope Jen and Gunny know what there getting into."

"You don't think their...relationship is a good idea?" Harriet sounded somewhat taken aback by Mac seemingly disapproving attitude.

"I don't know that there is a 'relationship' to approve of," Mac pointed out diplomatically as she strolled over to Nicki's crib. "And even if there is, it's not my place to sanction anyone's personal life." She shrugged, "Besides, Gunny's not at JAG anymore, so I don't see a problem."

"So, what's your concern?" Harriet finished up with Nicki and lifted her up with a grunt. "You're getting to be a big girl," she murmured into her daughter's wispy blond hair.

"My concern," she began, tilting her head and narrowing her eyes thoughtfully at Harriet, "is that now that you and those busy bodies we call friends no longer have me and Harm to speculate over, you'll all turn you attentions to the next poor, unsuspecting souls who show any sort of attraction for one another. Namely, Jen and Gunny."

Harriet ducked her head back toward Nicki, trying to look as innocent as possible. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Mac snickered at the unconvincing denial. She wondered briefly if she sounded that way the night before last, when she'd used the same line on Harm after he caught her singing 'Airship' to Sophie.

"Okay, so there were a few...public opinion polls," Harriet admitted, shifting the baby to her other hip. The marine raised an eyebrow and Harriet rolled her eyes. "And there may have been some betting going on," she continued on hastily, "but I never had anything to do with those. I only wanted my friends to be as happy as I was. As I am," she corrected as she smiled down a Nicki.

"I know," Mac assured, stepping forward and embracing her friend as best she could with two babies in the way. "And I sincerely appreciate that." Mac pulled back, laughing, and added, "Let's just hope it doesn't take them ten years to get it right."

"Amen," Harriet agreed as the two women turned to exit the nursery.

Jen, Mattie and Sophie were the only ones still occupying the livingroom as Mac and Harriet descended the steps.

"Hey ladies," Mac greeted. She followed Harriet's lead, setting Nate down beside Nicki in front of a basket full of toys.

"Hey," Jen replied, waving to the twins, "Commander Roberts took the boys outside to play with the dog. Mr. Johnson and the captain went with him."

Nodding, Mac sat down next to her on the couch and couldn't help the grin that naturally appeared when she saw Sophie's big eyes gazing up at her from Jen's arms. Sniffing inconspicuously, Mac reached over for her little girl. "I think someone needs a new diaper," she announced. "Mattie would you hand me her bag?"

"Sure," Mattie handed the bag over to Jen who placed it on the floor by Mac's feet.

Mac, meanwhile, was stripping the soiled diaper from Sophie's bottom. She looked up just in time to see Mattie turn slightly green as she spied the contents of the Pamper. "Yeah, I think I'm going to go introduce myself to my new dog." The adolescent stood swiftly, heading toward the back door.

"Mattie, tell the guys to decide what kind of pizza they want," Harriet called after the girl.

"Yes, Ma'am," they heard her reply before the back door swung shut.

"Sturgis is eating here with us since Varese is still in Las Vegas," Harriet explained. "And if I know Tiner, he's not going to pass up free food." All three ladies laughed at that. "Are you staying for dinner Jen?"

Looking away bashfully, the young woman shook her head. "I have dinner plans already, but thank you," she politely responded.

Harriet's eye lit up. "Plan's with Gunny perhaps?"

"Harriet!" Mac all but hissed as she finished up with Sophie.

"What? Oh, okay, fine," she threw her hands up in defeat, then grabbed the dirty diaper and stood up. "I'm going to go order those pizzas. Mac, any requests?"

"Meaty and greasy," Mac answered automatically, smoothing Sophie's brightly colored romper back into place.

"Got it," Harriet gave her a thumb's up. "Watch the twins for me a minute?"

"Got it," Mac agreed with a grin as she hoisted her own baby up onto her shoulder.

"Thanks, Colonel," Jen whispered as Harriet headed out the back door.

"Anytime Jen. I've been there, you know. Just remember that she does it out of love."

Jen laughed. "I understand, Ma'am." She turned her attention back to the baby sucking contently on her pacifier, her head resting comfortably against Mac's clavicle. "She really is something amazing."

"Yeah, she really is." Mac felt a lump in the back of her throat and quickly swallowed it down. Now was not a time to get all weepy and emotional.

"Are you taking a maternity leave, Ma'am?" Jen asked, turning her gaze from baby to mother.

"Um, yes," Mac replied, dropping an absent kiss on the baby's downy hair. "I talked to my C.O. yesterday from Italy. I'll have to go back next week as scheduled and work though Friday, but after that, I'm home with Sophie for three months." She was surprised how strongly she was looking forward to staying home for the next 12 weeks. What once would have sounded like a prison sentence, she now couldn't wait for.

"Well, your mommy's a pretty lucky lady," Jen informed Sophie in a whimsical voice.

Mac sighed contentedly, thinking that she couldn't agree more.

Stugis and Tiner arrived the same time the pizza did, with the Gunny right behind them. After properly 'ooh'ing' and 'ahh'ing' over the baby, Gunny escorted Jen to his car and the two headed out for their evening. Mac noticed Harm peeking out the window beside the front door as the two made their way down the walkway to Gunny's car. She stood at the foot of the steps with Sophie sucking on a chubby little fist, and watched his concerned, fatherly eyes follow the taillights down the road and out of sight.

"I think she's in good hands, Dad." Her lips curved up when he swung his head around to face her, his hand in the proverbial cookie jar.

"I realize that," he said defensively. "I'm just making sure...Gunny's not...speeding or, you know, driving...recklessly," he waved his hand toward the window lamely.

"Uh huh." She took a couple of steps, closing the distance between the two of them, watching as his eyes fell to the baby in her arms.

"She's never allowed to date you know," he stated very matter-of-factly.

Mac's smile grew wider. "We'll talk about it in a few years, honey," she patted his chest patronizingly.

"Well, I like him," came a voice from the kitchen doorway. They turned to see Mattie standing there, a plate of pizza in one hand and a can of Coke in the other. "He's hot, polite, respectful of women, hot, has a promising future, and, oh yeah, _hot_." She pressed the cold can to her cheek as if trying to cool off, grinning wickedly at Harm as she turned back toward the kitchen.

"You're grounded," he called after her ineffectively.

He looked back at Mac, helplessness written all over his face. "How am I going to do this with her?" he pointed to their new little daughter, sounding seriously panicked. "These two," he motioned between where Mattie was just standing and the window he'd recently been spying from, "…are stressful enough."

"We'll survive it," she assured him. "_You'll_ survive it. Just like millions of other fathers every day."

She reached up on her tiptoes and kissed him lightly, trying to banish the doubtful look from his face. Pulling back, she grabbed his elbow with her free hand and began pulling him into the kitchen. "Let's go get some pizza, Flyboy." Then just for fun, she added, "Did you see the way Gunny was watching Jen with Sophie? I think he saw something he liked," she tossed a wink at Harm from over her shoulder.

"Maaaac, come on now," he whined as he followed after her, grimacing.

TBC


	13. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

May 24, 2006  
2125 Local

Sophie stared intently at Mac's long index finger. Her eyes crossed slightly as she pulled it closer to her curious little face, forcing Mac to twist her arm at an odd angle to accommodate the rear facing car seat. When it was close enough, Mac wiggled the digit over the baby's nose, producing a surprised blink and a small smile. Sophie then promptly pulled the finger down and into her mouth. Mac laughed, pulling her hand away.

"Mommy might still need that, Sweetpea," she whispered, replacing her finger with the little pink pacifier that had fallen down between Sophie's bottom and the car seat. She held it in the baby's mouth for a few seconds until Sophie had a steady rhythm. Then she patted her blanket covered belly and turned back around in her own seat, checking for any kind of sign of Harm through the dingy front windows of the drug store. It wasn't until they had left Bud and Harriet's that they realized they needed to get a few supplies on their way to Admiral Chegwidden's house, which hadn't been lived in in almost a year.

They probably should have headed out a little earlier, but time had slipped away from even Mac's internal clock. The evening had been a pleasant one, with the former co-workers and friends chatting long after the pizza was gone and the babies were asleep. Tom and Mattie eventually headed home with Damnit, who had taken to her new mistress immediately. As hard as she had tried not to, Mattie cried when they said their goodbyes. Promises were made to have her out to California for a couple of weeks over the summer, maybe have Chloe out at the same time, but the moisture still pooled in the young girl's eyes. And while, undoubtedly, no one else noticed, Mac saw the look on Harm's face that told her he was holding back tears of his own.

Before Sturgis and Tiner bid their farewells an hour later, the two men helped Harm and Bud transfer suitcases from the Roberts van to the Rabb Neon. Mac had tried all night to ignore the uneasiness she felt about staying at the admiral's home. She had begrudgingly agreed with Harm that it was the most logical solution to their temporary boarding problem, and she wasn't going to change her mind now. So after their impromptu welcome home party, they headed to McLean for the night. They would start going through things in the morning, Harriet promising to head over after she got AJ off to school and Jimmy to his day camp.

The shrill ring of Harm's cell phone broke the peaceful atmosphere in the little rental car. Giving a small jump, Mac grabbed it, answering quickly before the unwelcome noise could startle Sophie as well.

"Captain Rabb's phone."

"Sarah?"

"Clay?"

"Where's Rabb?" Uh oh, he sounded impatient and testy.

"Inside CVS. Why?"

"We broke Albina," Webb's voice was grim on the other end of the connection.

"You're kidding." Mac was shocked, though she wasn't sure why. After all, she was the one who first voice concern over the little grandmotherly Italian woman. But to have it confirmed was...outrageous.

"It gets better," Webb continued, his tone of voice throwing a whole new spin on the word 'better'. "She ID'd the man our witness saw outside of Francesca's apartment. We have him in custody at Langley…"

"Wait, where are you?"

"I'm in D.C. Got in this afternoon after I got the call that the driver that Albina was so kind as to identify was caught trying to enter the country via La Guardia Airport."

Before Mac could question further, voices from Webb's side of the line interrupted. She was so focused on trying to decipher the muffled words on the other end that she didn't notice Harm's return until he tapped on the window. She punched a button to unlock the doors for him and waited until he climbed behind the wheel before hitting the speaker button on the receiver and trading him the phone for the bags.

"It's Webb," she told him before he could ask, scanning through his purchases to make sure he got all the essentials. "Albina confessed."

His eyes went wide as he accepted the phone. "To what, exactly?" Before she could answer, Webb's voice could be heard clearly again.

"Rabb?"

"Webb, what the hell is going on?"

"Albina identified our driver as one Omahr Sharaq. Apparently she's familiar with all the thugs who broke into Francesca's place. The head thug is her nephew."

"What?" Harm and Mac asked as one.

"Oh it gets better," there was that word again. "Not only is he Albina's nephew, but he's the son of one Abula Mahlik. Ali Mahlik. His mother is Albina's sister."

Mac looked up at Harm, whose eyebrows had all but disappeared into his hairline.

"It's a heart warming story really," Webb continued, sarcasm dripping from each word, "Albina's family helps Mr. Mahlik smuggle weapons to the Middle East from Libya by way of Palermo. In exchange for their cooperation, he doesn't beat, maim, or murder his wife. When he needed someone to keep an eye on Paul Jordan and his 'family', he sent in the sister-in-law with the child care experience."

"And she saw the picture of Mahlik the night Jordan took it to AJ..." Mac began filling in the blanks.

"And two hours later, Jordan, Francesca, and AJ were dead," Harm finished up bleakly. "So, how'd they know about Paul Jordan in the first place? And what happened to the photo and the documents?"

There was more background noise from Webb's side of the connection as Harm's questions were left unanswered, then, "Listen you two, I'm going to have to call you back. They've got Sharaq in custody and I want to be there when he's questioned-"

"So do I."

"Rabb," Clay warned.

"No, Clay, I want to be there. You can make it happen. Hell, Mac and I busted this case open for you. You owe us."

There were a few seconds of silence, then, "Fine, where are you now?"

"Almost to the admiral's house in McLean. We're staying there the rest of the week."

"Isn't that going to be kind of...creepy?"

"Focus Webb," Harm growled into his phone, ignoring the pointed look Mac shot his way. They heard a long-suffering sigh on the other end.

"Be at Langley in half an hour," Webb groused out. The call was disconnected.

Snapping his phone shut, Harm closed his eyes for a brief second. Mac could almost hear him praying for the strength to deal with Webb. Then he started the car. "Did he tell you where they found this Sharaq guy?" he asked as he pulled out into traffic again.

"La Guardia. I didn't get much more than that before you got back."

"You're okay with me going down there, right?"

She turned to him, surprised at the question. "Of course," she assured.

He nodded his head, then spared a glance in her direction, his gaze quizzical. "Do you want to come? I'm sure she'll sleep through it. Webb might be pissed," he smiled as if the idea pleased him, which it probably did, "but I'll call him back if you want." He raised the phone as if in substantiation of his claim.

Mac looked from the phone to Sophie in the back seat. She smiled when she saw the baby had fallen asleep, her pacifier hanging precariously from her lips. "Four days ago, I would have made the call myself," she looked back to Harm, "but it's not really about me anymore." She leaned across the gap between their seats, kissing his cheek sweetly. "Sophie's had enough excitement for one day," she told him when she pulled back. "I think we'll just settle in for the night. Maybe take a bath. But it means a lot to me that you asked."

He nodded his understanding and reached for her hand, pulling it to his lips to return her chaste kiss. "Alright, well, lets get you two back to the house, and then I'll head out."

Five minutes and twenty-two seconds later Harm was following Mac and Sophie up the front walk of AJ Chegwidden's former home, his arms laden with suitcases and baby paraphernalia.

Dropping everything in the livingroom, he glanced around the house before his eyes fell on Mac. "Do you want me to help you get settled?" He went to grab the travel crib, but Mac beat him to it.

"We'll be fine. She's asleep now anyway, so I have some time to get organized. Go," she made a 'shoo'ing motion with her hands, "find out what the hell happened in Milan two weeks ago. Sophie and I will be here when you get back."

Harm gave her a small smile, his lips pressed together in determination. He leaned over for one more quick kiss and a whispered, "Thank you," before heading back out to the car.

Mac looked around the quiet livingroom, wrapping her arms around herself to ward off a sudden chill. Great, she thought, not only am I stuck in this house, but I'm stuck in it alone. She knew she was being silly, but the large home felt so...cold and empty. Shaking her head, she began setting herself and Sophie up for the night.

She was just reaching for the travel crib when she heard an unhappy mewling sound coming from the car seat on the floor by the couch. Tiptoeing over, she saw the little girl's face was twisting up in her sleep and her head was jerking back and forth. Her empty mouth was pouting up, reaching for something that wasn't there. Immediately recognizing the problem, Mac reached down into the depths of the infant seat and successfully pulled the missing pacifier out from under the baby. She rubbed it on Sophie's lips, popping it in as soon as her mouth opened, and watching as she settled down instantly, never once opening her eyes.

It only took a few minutes for the marine to assemble the crib in a spare room upstairs- there was no way she was sleeping in the admiral's room- and unpack hers and Harm's things. After laying Sophie down in the baby bed, set to it's most shallow level, and switching on the baby monitor they had wisely remembered not to ship to California, Mac wandered into the kitchen and began looking for a coffee maker. She wanted to try to stay awake in case Harm called. That task accomplished, she decided that the most productive way to kill some time would be to start sorting out some of AJ's things.

She started in the office off of the livingroom and began throwing away old newspapers and magazines. Once that was done, she began searching the house for boxes to pack up some personal items that she wanted to hold onto for Sophie.

Her hunt eventually led her to the attached garage where she spotted some Stor-All boxes in the far corner. Intent on grabbing the boxes and getting back inside the house, Mac failed to notice the red gas container in her path until it tripped her up. She caught herself on the lawn mower next to the can before she could fall, and cringed at the smell that assaulted her nose. Realizing she must have spilled some of the fuel, she made a mental note to have Harm dispose of the gasoline and clean up the mess in the morning. Snatching the boxes, she headed back into the house.

She worked for an hour, managing to clear out the office of everything but the furniture, before Sophie's cries filled the room via the baby monitor. Mac pulled herself up from her seat on the floor and headed up the steps. Ten minutes later, she was resting in an easy chair in the practically empty office, feeding Sophie.

"Something tells me your not planning on going back to sleep anytime soon, huh?" Mac smiled as the baby gazed around her with wide eyes. Of course, never once did she give any indication of slowing down on her bottle. "That's okay," Mac reached down and took a little tiny hand in hers and brought it up to her lips for a kiss, "Mommy could use a break from all of this for a while."

After her supper, Sophie and Mac played on the floor for a while. They had 'tummy-time', an activity that Harriet had suggested. She'd said that it would help strengthen her muscles as well as teaching Sophie to roll over, and eventually to crawl. "Plus," the mother of four added knowingly, "if you get her use to being on her belly now, she won't scream like a banshee when she starts rolling onto it on her own and can't get back over."

Mac also spent some time carrying Sophie around the house, introducing her to her grandfather's home. She narrated the tour like a professional guide, wandering from room to room and halting their trek occasionally when she knew the story behind a certain picture or memento. As impossible as Mac realized the idea was, Sophie almost seemed to understand how meaningful the reminiscence was for herself and her new mommy. She was somber and attentive through the entire process.

An hour later found Mac in the bathroom, Sophie in her carrier on the floor, watching as her mommy filled the tub.

"My dear," Mac said as she pulled her long, dark hair high on top of her head, "you are going to learn at a very young age how to appreciate a good bath." 

Checking to make sure the water was warm enough for her, but not too hot for the baby, Mac began undressing herself, then her daughter. Once finished, she held Sophie securely in one arm and used the other to balance herself on the wall as she stepped into the tub. She gently lowered herself into the water, turning Sophie around so they faced each other. Then, pulling her knees up and planting her feet on the bottom of the bathtub, she sat the baby's bottom on her stomach; Sophie's tiny form now reclined against Mac's legs.

Sophie's eyes widened at the initial shock of the water, and Mac held her breath, waiting to see if a scream of displeasure was going to follow. It didn't however, so Mac relaxed back against the tub and began dancing her fingers on the water's surface in front of Sophie, splashing fat drops onto the baby's belly and chest. She wiggled gleefully, a wondrous smile on her round, chubby face. 

"See," Mac picked up a soft washcloth and the baby wash from the floor next to the bathtub and began lathering it up, "didn't Mommy tell you that you'd like this?" Sophie squealed when she slapped her own hand down into the water and sprinkled herself with droplets.

She washed Sophie from head to toe, careful of her eyes and ears, before rinsing her off. Then, lifting the baby up out of the water, she extended her arms all the way before bringing them down and blowing a raspberry on Sophie's belly, smelling her fresh Baby Magic scent. Mac spent a few more minutes laughing at Sophie, playing peek-a-boo and patty cake and simply enjoying bath time together, before finally climbing out of the tub and wrapping a large bath towel around herself and the baby. 

Pulling the plug out of the drain as she left, Mac carried the little girl down the hall to the bedroom. She closed the curtains before dropping the towel on a chair in the corner and spreading a blanket out on the bed. After Sophie was wrapped warm and snug, Mac turned toward the bureau and slipped into a pair of underwear and a sports bra. Sufficiently covered for the moment, she grabbed the baby lotion, some baby powder, a diaper and a sleeper and set about the task of getting Sophie ready for bed.

She was just pulling up her own sweatpants when Sophie began fussing. The little girl was getting sleepy, her eyes drooping low and her head moving around restlessly.

"Hey Sweetpea, I think it's time for bed." Picking her daughter up, she began swaying back and forth, her eyes shooting around the room in search of that magical pacifier. Sophie's fussing was quickly becoming full-blown crying; nothing like that morning at the apartment in Italy, but still unpleasant none-the-less. Remembering that the last two times she'd found the elusive baby plug it was in the car seat, Mac headed back toward the bathroom.

"You know young lady," Mac said calmly to the wailing infant, "someday, you and I are going to have a little talk about something we grownups like to call 'addiction'. Can you say ahh-ddiction?" Sophie just continued to howl.

Back in the bathroom, Mac squatted down in front of the carrier and began rooting around the seat with her free hand. She pulled off the blanket, burp cloth, and baby clothes she'd tossed there earlier. Reaching in between the cover and the lining, she prayed her hand would come back with the priceless piece of plastic and rubber. 

"This thing is like a black hole," she muttered to herself, followed by an, "Ah hah!" as she pulled the pacifier out triumphantly. She held it to Sophie's mouth until the baby recognized it's soothing presence and settled down.

Mac moved to stand up when something caught her eye. She leaned forward slightly, still balancing herself and Sophie on the balls of her feet, and turned the car seat to the right. Her finger brushed over the gap between the lining and the plastic casing of the seat. Sticking her finger in to the first knuckle, she ran it up the side from the bottom, where the small gap appeared, all the way up to the head of the contraption. The seam gave easily, apparently having been separated before and then tucked back into place, but never mended. Pulling the lining back and to the side, Mac's eye's widened when she glimpsed a large yellow envelope molded to the plastic base of the carrier. She lowered her knees to the ground and sat back on her heels, rubbing her hand over her mouth.

"Well, Miss Sophie…what have you been hiding?"

She looked down to her daughter, but the little girl was already fast asleep, completely oblivious to her mother's discovery or it's possible significance.

Picking up the car seat with her free hand, Mac took it back to the room with them. After putting Sophie down in her crib, Mac sat on the bed and pulled the large envelope from it's hiding spot.

She unwrapped the string from the tab slowly and opened the top, reaching her fingers in to pull out the first piece of paper, which turned out to be a photograph. She stared for a few seconds, hardly believing that she was most likely looking into the eyes of the terrorist known as Abula Mahlik.

Mac bit her lip. She set the picture down carefully, as if it were a bomb ready to detonate. Pulling the next item half way out of the envelope, she knew immediately that she was holding documented plans for an attack on U.S. troops in Libya. She stuffed the papers back in the envelope hastily and snatched the picture up, studying it as she stood up and headed for the door.

Mac checked on Sophie and the baby monitor as she passed by them. She needed to call Harm, and she needed Sophie to stay asleep while she did it. With the picture still clutched tightly in her hand, she hurried to the kitchen to retrieve her cell phone.

A strangely familiar smell assailed her senses instantly at the bottom of the stairs. She took a few steps forward and sniffed again. Before she had time to evaluate the source of the odor, she felt the air at the back of her neck move swiftly, violently, tussling her hair. Then came the blinding pain as something connected with her skull. She fell forward onto her knees, her vision already beginning to blur and darken around the edges. Her mind was screaming at her that the scent she detected was the gasoline from the garage, but her consciousness was already too far gone to react. The last thing she felt, as her body slowly slipped to the floor and blackness swallowed her, was the picture of Mahlik being ripped from her fingers.

TBC


	14. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

May 24, 2006  
2300 Local

The tall navy captain pressed his forehead against the two-way mirror, letting the cool glass sooth his rising impatience and accompanying anger. For over an hour he'd been watching from an observation room as they questioned Omahr Sharaq. Harm couldn't imagine the man could hold out against the CIA interrogator for much longer. Despite the mask of obstinacy he was wearing, the young man couldn't have been more than twenty years old, practically a child. He was no match for the trained agent grilling him in the dimly lit, cement gray room.

Since the young terrorist spoke no English, Harm had spent most of his time in the small room reading over the file on Abula Mahlik. It wasn't easy to get through; Mahlik was one sick individual. Harm found that more than once, he had to put the file down and walk away for a few minutes. It contained gruesome details of brutal violence, at times reading like one of those slasher films that Mattie and Jen were always so fond of. Unfortunately, unlike those late night movies, Harm couldn't simply banish these atrocities with a click of the remote.

Glancing over his shoulder, he spotted the file folder, currently laying on his long abandoned, metal fold out chair. He felt the anger, the disgust, well up in his chest. He closed his eyes and took a deep, cleansing breath, trying to stifle his growing frustration.

That's when he noticed it. He froze, suddenly forgetting where he was, and why. He turned his head toward his shoulder a little more and took a second, even deeper breath.

He smelled like Sophie. It was in his shirt, that combination of powder and formula and all things innocent and pure. Harm reveled in it, allowing it to wash away the filth of violence, leaving his soul feeling clean and refreshed. He opened his eyes, a soft smile replacing the grimace he'd been sporting since entering Langley. Her scent suddenly seemed to surround him, protecting him like a shield; his own unique defense against the horrors of the world.

He was a father. The thought filled him with an excitement that almost made him dizzy. He was going to marry Mac and raise a family...Holy Mary, Sarah MacKenzie was the mother of his child…hopefully soon to be children. They were going to have a home with a yard full of toys. There would be PTA meetings and Little League games. Dance recitals and school plays. Chicken Pox and skinned knees... His smile turned somewhat giddy; he couldn't wait.

"I told you, you were meant for this job," Mattie had stated earlier, when he found himself alone for a few precious minutes with his new baby daughter. The teenager had snuck up on him while he sang a few cords of some old lullaby he remembered from his days as a child on Grandma Sarah's farm. He flashed her his famous smile, which she returned before crossing the room to sit on the arm of his chair.

"Thanks Mats," he said quietly, both watching as Sophie slowly gave in to sleep.

"For what?"

He turned his attention from the baby in his arms to the girl at his side. He caught her eyes with his before he answered.

"For reminding me how much I loved being a dad," he replied sincerely, wrapping his free arm around Mattie's waist, content to have a few minutes with his two girls.

The shouts of the interrogator in the next room jerked Harm back to the present. He gave a resigned sigh, his shoulder's slumped forward. He envied Mac right now, back at the house with Sophie, bonding with the little girl. He wanted to be there as well, changing her diapers and helping with her bath. Not here, going through horrifying pictures and military reports of Mahlik's terrorist activities.

He backed up a few steps and straightened his stance when he saw Clayton Webb turn from his place in the corner of the interrogation room and exit through the back. Two seconds later, the door behind him opened and the spy stepped up next to him.

"We're starting to get somewhere," Clay stated without turning his eyes away from the figures on the other side of the glass. "He's just confirmed that Greg Mason is dead."

Harm sighed heavily and let his eyes slip shut briefly in supplication for Greg Mason's soul. He didn't know the man, but he was willing to bet he didn't deserve to die…certainly, not at the hands of a monster like Mahlik.

Webb continued, oblivious to Harm's muted prayer.

"He's new to this game. He's only been with Mahlik less than a year. He claims that he was desperate for money for his mother and sisters and that's why he hooked up with the group." Harm shook his head, but remained silent. Surely there were better ways to make money than joining ranks with a terrorist.

"We're working on an agreement to relocate his family in exchange for his cooperation. If it's given the 'go ahead', Sharaq's promised us addresses in Palermo and Libya. We'll have our people out there securing the locations, and any 'business associates' we come across, in less than 24 hours."

"Is the deal going to be approved," Harm asked, his eyes still following the cat and mouse game, taking place in the next room.

"I see no reason why the offer would be denied by the higher ups," Webb replied, rather haughtily. "They prefer as little mess as possible, and if we don't get his information voluntarily, we'll have to resort to drugs." The agent turned to face Harm, the comment rolling off his tongue nonchalantly, as if drugging someone up to get answers was as common as slipping a maitre-d a twenty to get a table. Harm understood without a doubt the reason and necessity behind such tactics, but he still gave another silent prayer, this one of thanks that he was no longer employed by the Company. He didn't think he could stomach this kind of work day after day.

Scrubbing his hands over his face, Harm groaned before looking around the room. "Who do you have to drug to get a cup of coffee?" he snarked.

Nonplused at Harm's tone, Clay walked back to the door he'd just entered from and had a few words with someone Harm couldn't see. Coming back to stand beside the navy man, his eyes returned to the figures behind the glass. "Taken care of."

Two minutes and a knock on the door later, Harm was sipping moderately decent coffee from a styrofoam cup. He wandered back over to the window and leaned his shoulder against it, watching as the agent continued to question Sharaq. Even if he'd not been told already, Harm could have guessed that the man had not been with Mahlik's organization long. Less than two hours had passed since the interrogation had commenced and already his stubborn set jaw had slackened to a pitiful frown and his eyes, once hard and unyielding, were now full of fear. They darted around the room spastically as if he expected some threat to jump out at him from the shadows.

The door in the interrogation room opened and an envelope was handed off to the agent. He pulled some eight by ten's out and studied them for only a second or two before slapping them down on the table in front of Sharaq. Clearly shaken by what he saw on the photographs, Sharaq pushed them away violently, only to have them shoved back in his face by the very determined agent

"What's with the pictures?" he asked Webb as he blew into his cup, hoping to cool the liquid down to a drinkable temperature.

Webb shuffled uncomfortably, peaking Harm's curiosity. He turned from the window to face the spook fully. "Clay?"

"They're crime scene photographs."

"Of Francesca's apartment? Why show him those if he was there?"

"Not that crime scene." Webb didn't elaborate any further.

"Then what..." Harm was sure that his face reflected the exact moment that he realized what crime scene Webb was referring to. The car bomb. He felt himself pale as he thought about what those photographs would depict. Turning back to the window, he watched the agent take a seat on the table next to the pictures as Sharaq reluctantly looked at each one.

"Has he said anything about the folder that was handed to Mason?" Harm turned his attention away from thoughts of grisly snapshots of Admiral Chegwidden's untimely death.

"Not much more than what Albina told us," Webb's frustration was evident. "They suspected that Mason handed it off to Jordan. They waited until Albina confirmed, then they attempted to eliminate it and anyone who they suspected saw the contents." He sighed deeply and rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. "He did say that the attack was called off when they couldn't find Mason or the papers. Whether or not they've decided to go ahead with the plan, now that Mason is dead and they know we don't have the documents..." he trailed off with a shrug, fatigue shadowing his eyes.

"Why was he in the country?"

Webb focused his hard gaze on the suspect in the next room, "He was told to rendezvous with Mahlik's son, Ali, for instructions when he landed in New York. We checked the meeting place, but by the time our men arrived, it was hours past the arranged time."

Before Harm could respond, there was a banging at the door, which then flew open, a young, over eager looking agent skidding to a halt in front of them. "Director Webb, we've just intercepted a police report of a fire in Arlington about two hours ago." The man paused to catch his breath.

Webb's eyebrows rose impatiently. "So?"

"The fire was reported at this address," he handed a piece of paper over to Webb, who scanned it before looking back up, his face no less befuddled. "That's Paul Jordan's address here in the states," the excitement of a possible break in the case gleaming in the rookie agent's eyes

Understanding dawning, Webb ordered, "Get some agents over there quickly." He turned back to Harm as the younger man exited the room. "That's what he was sent here for," he said, pointing to Sharaq in the other room. "They're trying to destroy any trace of those damned documents." He began pacing the room, then abruptly headed for the door. "Ali Mahlik could still be in the area."

Harm's eye's widened suddenly, a sick thought settling heavily in the pit of his stomach like stone. "Webb, would they target the admiral's house?" he asked anxiously.

Webb stopped short, his head swinging around to face Harm. "Wha-"

Harm was in the little man's face in two long strides, "Could they have planned the same thing for AJ's house?!" he shouted.

Webb turned back around, throwing open the door and startling the agents on the other side. His head twisted to face Harm. "What's AJ's address?"

Harm rattled of the house number as he fumbled through his jacket pocket for his phone, listening as Webb barked orders for a team to head out. He hit speed dial 1 for Mac's cell number. After the fifth ring, he was fighting the urge to throw the piece of plastic and wire at the wall in front of him.

"She's not answering her phone," he informed Clay in a tight, panic laced voice.

As one, the two men turned toward the door, sprinting past the young agent from earlier. Over his shoulder, Webb yelled, "Have the fire department and EMTs dispatched to that address as well!"

Harm was repeatedly trying to call Mac's cell phone, to no avail. Each time he received her voice mail announcing that the customer was 'unavailable at this time,' his heart constricted a little more.

_'ohgodohgodohgod...'_

Webb's cell phone rang, and for a split second, Harm thought that it was his own. That it was Mac calling to tell him that she and Sophie were just taking a bath, or that her phone had been turned down while she put the baby to sleep, or she forgot to….

"Webb."

Damnit.

"Shitshitshit. Alright, are our people on their way over there? … The emergency personnel? … Good. Keep me informed." He ended the call as the two reached his dark blue sedan. Throwing open the driver-side door, Webb caught Harm's eyes over the hood of the car. "Sharaq remembered two locations he heard in conversation before he left. Arlington and McLean, Virginia."

Harm's limbs felt heavy as he threw himself into the passenger's seat, the car rolling backwards out of the parking space before he had his door fully closed. He stared hard at the cell phone in his hand, silently begging it to ring. He felt tears prickling behind his eyes, but he refused to believe that there was anything to cry over. Not yet. Everything could be fine. Completely fine.

"Harm, you still with me?"

He saw Webb toss a concerned look in his direction.

"Yeah Clay, just get us to that house, okay." He pulled himself together long enough to meet the other man's eye momentarily, before the spook turned back to the road, tires squealing as he pulled out of the parking lot.

Harm faced forward, his spine stiff and his body tense as if preparing for a fight. He willed the car to go faster, even as he glanced at the speedometer and noted that the needle was creeping past ninety-five, well on it's way to one hundred. It wasn't fast enough. His family was across town, in danger, and he could do nothing but sit here on his ass in this damned spook car. He wasn't even driving. He should have been driving. Should have insisted on it. He'd feel useful if he were driving. He'd have something to concentrate on besides thoughts of Mac and Sophie and terrorists and fires...

"HARM!"

Startled, Harm dropped his phone onto the floorboards of the car, immediately bending over to pick it up.

"What?!" he answered irritably.

"Left or right at the light?" Webb asked impatiently, the light in question looming in front of them.

"Right," he replied, bracing himself with one hand on the dash and the other gripping the garment handle by his head as the car skidded around the corner, practically tipping up on two wheels. He had the brief, irrational thought that maybe he should have the same talk with Clay that he'd had with little AJ on the importance of keeping all the wheels of your vehicle on the ground at all times. Then reality gave him a swift, painful kick in the gut, and Harm was reminded why Clay was driving like a NASCAR contender. For all the animosity between the two men, Harm was relieved that it was Webb and not some nameless CIA agent who he was dealing with right now. No one else, short of himself of course, would move mountains to get to Mac.

Webb's phone rang again, and this time he simply hit the speaker button. "Talk to me," he demanded.

"Sir, just thought you should know that emergency crews have already been dispatched to the address you gave us."

Harm's heart simply stopped. It dropped to his stomach, which flipped over, threatening to expel it's contents all over the gray interior of the government issued car.

_'Ohgodohgodohgod...'_

"How long ago?" Webb asked in a clipped voice.

"Approximately twelve minutes, Sir."

Webb hung up the phone with another curse as he weaved in and out of what little traffic there was at such a late hour. "Harm, they're fine," he said without looking over at the navy captain.

Harm swung his head toward Clay, an acidic remark on the tip of his tongue. Then he saw the other man's white knuckled grip on the steering wheel, and he swallowed it back, along with a large, suffocating lump. He's only trying to help, he told himself, taking a deep breath, trying to ignore the pang he felt at smelling his daughter's baby scent with every breath he inhaled. He took two more, in...and out...in...and out.

They didn't help. The panic from earlier was increasing to full blow terror. He was hanging on to his sanity by the weakest thread, the last words Mac spoke to him replaying over and over in his head. Taunting him.

_'Sophie and I will be here when you get back.'_

Then, just as he thought he had his churning stomach under control, the house came into view, and Harm was faced with a new wave of horrifying nausea.

From their position three blocks back, they could see the blazing inferno engulfing AJ Chegwidden's home. The street was full of emergency vehicles. Men and women in uniforms were setting up barriers around the perimeter of the house, while others, dressed mostly in pajamas, stood in the road and across the street. Red, white and blue lights flashed like some cruel mockery of the patriotism that Harm had built his life around. Men in yellow and black were diligently working to extinguish the flames as police officers worked to keep the gawking onlookers at a safe distance.

Webb's car barreled right up onto the lawn, jerking to a stop when he threw the emergency break. Without turning the engine off, both men jumped out of the vehicle. Harm immediately headed straight into the fiery hell, common sense a long forgotten concept.

"Harm!"

He felt Webb grab his elbow, but jerked it away, never slowing down.

"Damnit Rabb, STOP!"

This time Webb not only grabbed his arm, but used Harm's momentum to swing himself in front of the determined captain. Harm barely noticed. He could feel the heat of the fire on his face; sweat beading on his forehead. The smells and sounds of the burning house were predominate in the air, popping and cracking like some macabre camp fire.

"Excuse me, you can't be here!" A man in a police uniform ran up, waving a hand at the car parked carelessly in the yard. "And you can't leave your car there, either!"

Webb flipped his identification out for the officer. "I'm in charge here, now. There was a woman and a baby in that house," he spoke urgently, still gripping Harm's arm. "Have they been found?"

With those words, Harm's attention turned from the hellish destruction in front of him to the man speaking with Webb. He recognized the uniform as Virginia State Police. His vision narrowed to include only the short, stout man, nervously glancing between Webb's I.D. and the car behind them. His breath caught in his throat as the once inescapable sounds of the chaos around them faded to a distant hum. The only noise Harm was aware of was the sound of his own pounding heart echoing in his ears. He stared with a frightening intensity at the officer, who had no idea that with his next words, he had the power to break the unbreakable Harmon Rabb Junior.

_'Ohgodohgodohgod...Please...'_

TBC


	15. Chapter 14

I"m going to try to email everyone personally, once the epilogue is up tomorrow, to thank you all for the wonder ful reviews. I know everyone's freaking out about the fate of Mac and Sophie, so I'm not going to keep you in suspense any longer...

Chapter 14

May 24, 2006  
2247 Local

The first thing Mac became aware of was the throbbing pain in her head. It felt like someone had replaced her brain with a bass drum, banging on it repeatedly and mercilessly. Her eyes practically vibrated behind their lids with each beat. Moving definitely wasn't an option yet, so she lay still, attempting to get her bearings about her. She cautiously opened one eye, just a crack, confirming that it was in fact, a tiled kitchen floor pressed against the side of her face. Now, the obvious question to ask next was, how did she get there?

She froze, her body becoming still as stone, when she heard footsteps coming in from the garage on the other side of her prone body. A man's voice filled the room, speaking in heavily accented English. Mac could only hope he was on a phone. One guy, she could take down. But in her condition, two would be a problem.

"I realize I am late." There was a pause and then, "Sharaq did not show, so I must complete his mission as well as my own."

'Okay', thought Mac, '…this is good. So far it's just him. I can handle this asshole.' She held her breath as he passed by her head, waiting for an opportunity to present itself.

"She had the photograph of my father in her hand. She must die. I will go ahead with the plan"

With those words, it all came rushing back to her. Sophie's car seat, the envelope with the picture and the documents, the blinding pain when she was hit from behind. Mac quickly conferred with her internal clock, relieved when she realized that only five minutes and forty-eight seconds had passed since she lost consciousness.

"Yes, I have the documents as well... Yes, it is taken care of. I will be on my way shortly."

Realizing he'd found the rest of the papers, Mac's gut clenched at the idea that a monster like Mahlik had been in the same room as Sophie. She kept one eye cracked open, watching as the feet of Ali Mahlik- she was assuming that's who she was dealing with- paced back and forth by her head.

Hearing the phone snap shut, she braced herself for attack. Not being one hundred percent, she knew that the element of surprise was her best advantage. Waiting until she saw his feet pass by her head again, she sprang into action. Like a striking snake to its prey, Mac's arm shot out, catching Mahlik's ankle and yanking it out from under him. With the skill and swiftness of a true marine, Mac was on her feet and battle-ready in half a second. Her head was spinning, and her stomach was threatening mutiny, but outwardly, she showed no weakness. Tense and ready for a fight, she waited for retaliation from the younger man.

Nothing happened.

She approached his form cautiously, nudging him with her bare toe when she was close enough. When she got no response, she nudged him harder; forcing his body onto it's back. He was out cold, the massive amount of blood covering the bottom half of his face telling her he'd broken his nose when it had met with the rust colored ceramic tile of the kitchen floor.

"Well that was anti-climatic," Mac said rather loudly as she kicked him lightly and watched his face for any indication that he was faking unconsciousness. Seeing none, she bent over the terrorist to check for weapons, coming across the papers and picture from upstairs as she did so. After confiscating the documents as well as his firearm, Mac glanced around the kitchen for some thing to tie up her prisoner.

That's when she noticed it. Suddenly she remembered her last memory before being attacked from behind. She'd smelled gasoline; and now she smelled smoke. Whipping around quickly, she stood up and rushed to kitchen doorway, tucking the papers in to the back waistband of her pants and pulling her shirt down overtop of them. When she reached the swinging kitchen door, all of her 'incase of a fire' training went right out the proverbial window. She slammed it open with such force that it hit the wall with an almost deafening 'crack'.

The livingroom was thick with black smoke, the furniture nothing more than kindling, and the flames already working there way up the thick curtains framing the front window. Mac forced down her initial panic, noting that the dense cloud was definitely not coming from up the stairs where Sophie was sleeping. Turning back toward the kitchen, Mac rushed over to the sink, grabbing the towel she'd used earlier while making Sophie's bottle.

She heard him a split second before he would have lunged at her back. Mac spun around, the weapon in her hand aimed at her assailant's head. With a condescending grin, he slowly raised his hands and took a step back.

"Ali Mahlik." Mac tried to make it more of a statement than a question. She needed to confirm his identity, but didn't want to lose even the slightest bit of the upper hand.

"Sarah Mackenzie," he replied with a nod and an unsettlingly bloody smile. Well, she wasn't quite expecting him to know her name, but she wasn't about to let him know that. At least he'd verified who he was for her.

"Move away from the table, please," she flicked the barrel of the gun toward the far corner of the room and away from the kitchen table where her cell phone lay.

"You will not use that on me, woman," he sneered wickedly in reply, the blood from his nose coating his lips and staining his teeth a sickening pinkish color.

"Wanna bet?"

He backed up three more steps, his obvious goal being the door leading to the garage, and by extent, his freedom. His movement ceased with the sound of Mac cocking his gun. She glanced toward the door, seeing smoke seeping in from underneath. Mahlik saw her eyes shift and knew exactly where her thoughts were leading her.

"I am very good at starting fires. It is what I am best at, what I love most," he laughed, a cold, hollow sound, "I am what you call a...pyromaniac? Which I do not understand, I would not consider myself a maniac, if I understand the translation correctly." The casual way in which he seemed to converse, while a fire blazed not fifteen feet away, was proof to the contrary as far as Mac was concerned, but she really didn't have the time to argue.

He nodded his head at the door, "You have an infant upstairs, yes? So you have a choice to make, American. Stay here with me," he gave her a leer that actually made Mac feel dirty, "or go save your child." Obviously thinking he'd won the battle, Mahlik took two more steps backward and made a move to turn and flee.

With speed and precision, Mac dropped the barrel of her gun slightly and fired twice, one shot hitting Mahlik's right thigh, the other, his left knee. The man dropped to the floor, a scream of agony escaping his mouth before he clamped his lips shut tight. Not wasting any more time on him, Mac sprinted out of the kitchen and headed toward the stairs, never giving a second thought to the terrorist writhing on the floor.

Using the towel as a mask against the smoke, Mac raced up the stairs toward the guest room. The smoke wasn't as thick up there, but it was curling up to the second story at an alarming rate. She burst through the door to the bedroom, coming to a stop at Sophie's bedside. Not taking the time to feel relief that the little girl seemed completely unharmed, she dropped the towel and snatched her daughter up, grabbing a receiving blanket to cover her tiny head.

Mac began making her way back down the stairs cautiously, the baby wailing unhappily, secured against her chest with one arm. The other hand steadily held the gun out in front of her, preparing for the highly unlikely possibility that her attacker had actually made it up off of the floor. A large part of her relaxed when she heard the sirens that seemed to be getting closer.

Reaching the bottom of the steps, Mac choked on the thick smoke, more dense than it had been just moments ago. It was near impossible to breath, and she was becoming increasingly concerned that Sophie was inhaling smoke with each of her heartbreaking sobs. It was quite obvious that she was getting fairly fed up with the violent interruptions to her sleeping schedule.

Mac made her way away from the stairs, toward what she thought was the front door. However, being in an unfamiliar house full of smoke, Mac found herself becoming disoriented almost immediately. She held the baby close, trying to keep the blanket over her head. Unfortunately there was nothing she could do, for either of them, about the intense heat. She was sweating profusely, and it was becoming impossibly harder to keep her grip on the gun in her slippery palm.

Mac the Marine was warring with Sarah the Mom for control, but she knew that it was the marine who was going to get her daughter out of that house. Quickly estimating how far she'd moved from the staircase, she knew that she couldn't make it to the front door. By now, almost the entire first floor was engulfed in flames and using the front door was no longer an option, so Mac was forced back toward the kitchen again. She wasn't too keen on the idea of having Sophie anywhere near Ali Mahlik, but if she had no other choice...

The porch. Mac turned sharply away from the swinging doors, and worked her way around the room, staying close to the wall so as to not get turned around. She mentally smirked at the idea that the admiral's porch, _the porch_, would be her saving grace that night. 'Harm's going to love that.'

The sirens where right outside as she made steady progress around the room, her eyes darting from the fire blazing up the stairwell, and the still clear exit on the other side of the room. She could just make out the door through the black cloud, red and blue lights penetrating the dense smoke and assuring Mac that help was there. She just needed to get to it.

And then, as if in answer to her prayers, the doors seemed to explode from the outside, and two men, dressed in yellow and black fire retardant suits, suddenly emerged from the smoke and flames. One man rushed towards her, throwing some sort of heavy blanket over her and Sophie, guiding her toward the now nonexistent door. She saw the other man head toward the kitchen and wanted to warn him as to what he would encounter in there, but everything happened so fast, and then she was outside.

Once at the end of the front yard, Mac felt her rescuer pull the blanket off of her and she finally felt the crisp, fresh night air. Taking a deep breath, Mac immediately bent over at the waist, still clinging to her baby, and let loose with a torrent of coughs, so deep she thought she'd lose a lung. Mac's continuous coughing began to jar Sophie, who was letting the world know that she was beyond irritated and reaching boiling point. She felt someone pull the screaming infant from her arms, and wanted to protest, but couldn't stop coughing long enough to even shake her head.

After being helped to an ambulance for a cursory check, an EMT following close behind with her baby, Mac found herself sitting just inside the back of the vehicle, a calmer- though not much- Sophie in one arm, the other hand pressing an oxygen mask over her nose and mouth. They had given her some Tylenol for her head, but it was still pounding horribly. The paramedics had seemed to think that the baby was none the worse for wear, but both mother and daughter needed to get a thorough check at Bethesda before they could be cleared.

"I understand that my daughter and I need to be looked over by a doctor," Mac explained patiently, pulling the mask away from her face and earning a glare from Gabe, the EMT taking her blood pressure. "All I'm asking is that you find me a phone so I can contact my fiancé. If he comes back here to this, he's going to panic." Panic was putting it lightly. Mac knew he'd freak out, and the last thing she needed after a night like tonight, was a freaked out Harmon Rabb.

"And I explained, Ma'am, that you'll be able to call him as soon as we get you to Bethesda. They have plenty of teleph-"

He was cut off by the squealing of tires. Ever ready for an emergency, Gabe hopped out of the ambulance and walked around its side to see if he was needed. Mac followed behind quietly, hoping to avoid being chastised, again, for not using the oxygen mask. She almost felt sorry for him, she wasn't being very cooperative when it came to that mask; she just couldn't argue efficiently with it on. Paramedic and patient both stopped short when they caught sight of the car that had careened up onto the front lawn, watching in muted amazement as two men took off running across the yard, one seeming intent on racing right into the burning home. Luckily, the other stopped him.

"Told you he'd panic," Gabe jumped when his patient spoke from right over his shoulder. Walking around beside him, she held out the fitfully sleeping baby. "Would you mind?" she asked tiredly.

After he accepted the tiny bundle, Mac wearily headed toward Harm and Clay, who both seemed to be drilling holes into a local sheriff with their eyes.

"Harm!" her attempt to yell fell short, her throat still irritated from the smoke. He heard her however, his head swinging around and his eyes searching wildly for her. Once he spotted her, his whole body seemed to deflate. He turned away from Clay and the police officer to head in her direction. Mac met him halfway, falling into his embrace. She felt him shudder as his arms pulled her close, one under her arms with his hand at the base of her neck, and the other around her waist, lifting her up until her feet barely touched the ground

"Ohgodohgod, thank you," he breathed into her hair.

"Breathe Flyboy," she tried to jest, but the cracking of her voice betrayed her. So she just held on tightly, both arms locked around his neck and her face buried in his shoulder. She let a few tears fall, the first that weren't caused by acerbic smoke or blows to the head.

"Are you okay?" his concerned voice whispered close to her ear, probably feeling the moisture on his skin. She nodded her head into his neck, not ready to move yet. She knew that she must look a mess, all sweaty and dirty. At least Gabe had cleaned up the blood from her head wound.

"Sophie?" he asked in a choked whisper.

Mac pulled back quickly, realizing that she was scaring him. "She's fine Harm, we're fine." Slipping her hands from around his neck and up to cradle his face, she caught his eyes with her own. "We're both just fine," she reiterated emphatically before pulling him down to kiss his lips lightly, feeling the tension roll off of his body. "I'm sorry, I'm scaring you," she murmured against his mouth, "I'm just a mess at the moment and-"

She was cut off when he began kissing her back, deepening the embrace, turning it from comforting to passionate. She fell into him, letting his lips and arms and hands pull her away from reality, if only for a moment.

"Ehm," they turned in unison, their lips tearing apart almost painfully, as Gabe approached with Sophie, now awake, and still not looking to pleased with her current situation. He happily relinquished her to her eager father. "I really should be getting you and the little one to Bethesda, Ma'am."

Mac watched as Harm's overprotective radar kicked into high gear. He turned to her with Sophie resting comfortably on his shoulder. "I thought you said the two of you were fine?" Not waiting for her answer, he turned to the paramedic. "Are they okay?" he asked, and Mac watched as all that anxiety washed over him again.

"It's standard precautionary procedure, Sir," Gabe replied with an easy smile. He'd apparently dealt with worried fathers and husbands before. "They both have some smoke inhalation, but the little one's seems very minor. She's effectively demonstrated that she has a healthy pair of lungs," he added dryly.

Mac smiled as Harm breathed a sigh of relief and turned his head a fraction to place a kiss on his daughter's soft head, his hand rubbing up and down her back in a soothing gesture. However, his intense stare never wavered from the EMT in front of him. "What about Mac?" he asked as if she wasn't standing right there. She rolled her eyes affectionately, knowing what was coming next.

"Well, she definitely breathed in more smoke than the baby, but she's up talking and having no trouble breathing, so I don't think there are going to be any long term problems." Just as Harm's face finally seemed to relax, Gabe continued, "It's really the head wound we'd like to have looked at. While they do tend to bleed-"

"What head wound!?"

"Harm, you'll frighten Sophie," Mac state calmly, not wanting to add that his yelling wasn't helping her head any, either. She was certain that that wouldn't go over well. Seeing his gaze switch from Gabe to herself, she hurried on to explain. "I was hit here when Ali Mahlik caught me by surprise," she indicated the damage to the back of her head, no longer bleeding thank goodness.

Harm was behind her in an instant. She could feel his free hand hovering around her head and his fingers brushing her hair, not sure where to touch without causing pain. "How bad?"

She knew that his question was posed to the man with the medical training and not her, so she stayed silent and still, letting Harm fuss over her for a few minutes. Once upon a time she would have thrown a fit, giving him some speech about being a marine and surviving head wounds way before he came around; and that was all true. However, Mac knew now that his fretting was just his way of showing her how much she meant to him, how much he needed her...how scared he'd been. Plus, it gave him something to focus on so he could come down off his adrenaline high. Tuning out the conversation going on behind her, she took a minute to contemplate just how far they'd come since that Hollywood-esque adventure through the Arizona desert.

"Mac. Mac!" Harm was suddenly in her face, staring from one eye to the other, as Gabe watched on in amusement. She jerked back involuntarily.

"What?" she asked innocently.

"You wouldn't answer me. Are you sure you shouldn't be on your way to the hospital?" he was watching her warily, his hand wrapped around her upper arm as if he expected her to fall over any minute.

"I'm sorry, I was just lost in thought," she assured him, rubbing a hand up and down Sophie's back. "We'll head to Bethesda in a few minutes. What was your question?"

"Um, how about what the hell happened?" She knew he was frustrated with the whole night, not with her, so she let his tone slip.

"Well, Ali Mahlik somehow gained entry to the house and hit me hard enough to knock me out for a few minutes-"

"How long is a few?" Harm interrupted.

"Five minutes, forty eight seconds," she stated patiently. She ignored Gabe's confused look and focused on Harm's contented one. For some reason unknown to her, he always seems to relate her health to her ability to tell time. She continued on, "When I came to, I tripped him up, and broke his nose. When he tried to run, I shot him. Once in each leg." They both knew that there was much more to the story, but that would wait until everything calmed down.

Harm's whole demeanor swelled with pride. "That's my Marine." Pulling her to him by her arm, he leaned in for another kiss. They separated just as Clayton Webb walked up to them, a firefighter two steps behind him.

"Good grief Mac, did you leave anything behind for us?" He approached the little family with a swagger, pecking the woman in question on the cheek before taking a respectable step back. "I'm glad you're okay," he said sincerely. "Both of you," he nodded toward Sophie. Having finally exhausted herself, she was sleeping soundly against her daddy's chest.

Clay turned to the gentleman standing slightly behind him and gestured him forward. "Mr. Bruester, meet Captain Harmon Rabb, Colonel Sarah MacKenzie, and..." Clay gave Gabe an expectant look.

"Paramedic Gabe Andrews," he introduced himself with a smile.

Webb continued, "Everyone, this is Wes Bruester. He's the…."

"One who pulled us out of the house," Mac finished for Webb as she recognized the man. She was amazed at how young he looked, probably only twenty-four or so. "Thank you," her voice held a note of awe. She knew that her appreciation couldn't be expressed with a simple thanks, but she honestly didn't know what else to say.

"You did real good, guy," Gabe added.

Wes blushed slightly as he replied, "It's all part of the job, Ma'am, Sirs," he nodded to Harm, who reached out and shook the younger man's hand.

"It was more than a job to me, son. It was my family..." Harm glanced down to Sophie and then over to Mac. Finally, his eyes slid back to the firefighter, and Mac saw so much gratitude in his gaze, it was almost painful. "I owe you my life," he finished simply.

"You're military, Sir, Ma'am?" At Harm and Mac's simultaneous nods, he continued, "Well then, let's just say I'm returning the favor. Now if you'll excuse me," he looked back at the house, "I'm not off the clock quite yet." With another handshake, and a hug from Mac, the young man, who suddenly didn't seem so young, went back to work.

"Huh. Just when I start think that his generation just doesn't get it..." Clay shook his head in wonder.

Looking around, Mac realized that the yard and the still smoldering house were now crawling with agents. "When did they get here?"

Clay glanced of his shoulder. "Oh, them. They were right behind me and Harm. They'll be taking care of our friend with the two bullet holes and busted face," he looked at Mac meaningfully.

"He pissed me off," she replied with a shrug. "How did you guys know to come here?"

"Sharaq…"

"Excuse me," Gabe cut Clay off, raising his hand to get everyone's attention. "As interesting as all of this is, and believe me, it is, I need to get the ladies to the hospital for a few tests. Plus, I've worked around here long enough to know CIA when I see them, and I have a feeling that whatever you people are involved in, or about to discuss, is not something that I 'need to know'," he used his fingers to air quote his last three words, further substantiating his claim that he knew a little something about the shady workings of the Company.

Webb seemed particularly disgusted with himself as the three of them gave one another penitent looks.

Webb nodded his acquiescence to Gabe, who then turned and headed back to his truck. "I'll meet you folks over there when you're ready."

"Wow," Mac said into the silence, as the paramedic walked away, "we are just _not good _at this whole spy thing." She looked at the two men in bemused astonishment.

"Speak for yourself," Clay attempted to scoff, but when both Harm and Mac shot him outrageous looks, he gave them a half shrug and a Clayton Webb smirk. "Hey, I've been riding a desk for a while. I'm rusty."

"Yeah, well, my last 'need to know' discussion concerned my mother's birthday," Harm smirked as well, his hand once again rubbing up and down on Sophie's back. He turned to Mac, raising his eyebrows.

She looked from one man to the other, both apparently waiting for her own defense. "What? I'm the one who bagged a bad guy single-handedly, remember? I need no excuses. Oh, and by the way," she reached behind her, under her shirt, and pulled out the documents she'd found in Sophie's car seat, "I think you might be looking for these." She handed the papers to Webb with just a small amount of flourish. Then, without so much as an explanation, she turned on her heels and headed for the waiting ambulance, leaving behind two befuddled men and one sleeping baby.

She heard Webb sputter a couple of times before he called out, "I assume we'll be talking about this at your debriefing," which she answered with a wave of acknowledgment without turning back.

She felt Harm come up behind her as she made her way around to the waiting ambulance. When he placed a hand on her shoulder, she spun around and hugged him tightly, careful not to disturb the baby now tucked safely in the crook of his arm.

"Hey, you're okay," he assured, stroking her hair lightly, mindful of her injury, "I've got you." She knew he wasn't totally unprepared for this. She may have been playing the cocky marine in front of Webb, but Harm knew better. "Everything's okay now."

"I was scared," she whispered after a beat.

"God, so was I," he whispered back, and she felt his nose nuzzle comfortably into her hair.

"I love you," she said softly, pressing her face into his chest. Wearing nothing on her feet but slippers had her at a slight height disadvantage that she hadn't noticed earlier, probably due to the fact that Harm had all but hauled her up to him. Now, Mac was enjoying being somewhat dwarfed by him. It made her feel safe.

"I love you too. Both of you, so much," she heard him reply, as he held her with his free arm. Mac turned her head to the side, resting her cheek against Harm's strong chest. She then reached out to Sophie, safe in her daddy's embrace, and cradled the baby's head with her hand.

Harm and Mac watched as the gawking onlookers returned to their homes; as firemen and police officers began the long and tedious clean-up process; as CIA agents scurried about the smoking ruins of the late AJ Chegwidden's home. In the midst of all the pandemonium, they held tightly to one another, and to Sophie, each silently swearing never to let go.

TBC in the epilogue

And you guys thought that I'd actually do something horrible to them :)


	16. Epilogue

Here's the end. Thanks to everyone who stuck aournd for the entire journey! I am planning a sequel, but I've put no time restraint on it, and I don't like to post until the whole sha-bang is ready to go. So it'll happen when it happens :)

Epilogue  
Four years later  
1655 local

Striding in through the front entrance of the building, the two were a sight to behold. The tall navy captain, standing at six foot plus and dressed in summer whites, carried himself with a self-confident gait. His cover was low on his head, but his hazel eyes were too bright to disguise. His smile, however, was by far his most striking feature. Dazzling and jubilant, it was enough to charm even the toughest of the hard-nosed nurses at Naval Medical Center San Diego.

His companion was as lovely as her counterpart was handsome. Her dark auburn mane was pulled high on her head in a mess of large curls and colorful ribbons. She had darker eyes than his, and they were framed by long, thick lashes. However, her most prominent feature, at least at the moment and probably only because of the way her chest was puffed out proudly, was the purple t-shirt with the words "I'M THE BIG SISTER" written in white block lettering across the front.

In her new shirt, white-cropped pants, and salt-water sandals, four-year old Sophie Rabb was an endearingly beautiful little girl. Sitting up high on her daddy's arm, she fiddled with the insignia on his cover shyly, avoiding admiring glances directed at the pair by the few people in the lobby. Sophie was a friendly little girl, very polite, a genius according to her parents, and she could ramble on for hours to anyone one of her family or friends, but she was rather timid around strangers. So she played with her daddy's hat as they walked toward the elevator, casting a shy smile at the nurses behind the front desk.

Arriving at the elevator, Sophie's daddy stooped down to allow her to push the call button.

"Daddy, when's Mommy comin' home?" she asked as they waited for the car.

"Tomorrow, baby. Why, are you bored with me already?" Harm tweaked her nose then poked her belly and she giggled at his silliness.

Then she shrugged in reply. "No, I just missed her las' night." Putting on what her mommy called her marine face, she continued, "but Pawpaw read me 'Goodnight Moon', and he's real good at it and Nanah fixed my hair for me today. Isn't it pretty Daddy, I picked out all the ribbons and Nanah tied them up in my ponytail, see?" She began picking at the curls and bows, pulling them closer to Harm's face for inspection.

As they stepped onto the elevator, Harm tried to hide his amused smile. "You look absolutely beautiful sweetheart," he assured his daughter sincerely for the fourth time, smoothing down the pieces that she had pulled out of place. Stooping down again, he pointed to the panel of numbered buttons. "Hey Soph, can you push the 'six' button?"

Abandoning her curls for the moment, Sophie scrutinized the panel before selecting the button for the sixth floor. Then she turned back to her father with a bright smile. "There ya go, Daddy!" she announced proudly.

"Great job, baby," he straightened back up and flashed her a large smile of his own.

"Thank you," she responded politely. "Daddy?"

"Yeah Soph?" Keeping one eye on the progression of the numbers above the door, Harm turned the rest of his attention to his daughter.

"Am I gonna spend the night with Nanah and Pawpaw again tonight?" She didn't sound upset at the prospect, just...disappointed?

Harm studied her curiously. "No, I don't have to stay here with Mommy and the baby tonight. It's just you and me kiddo," he bounced her a couple of times, eliciting a squeal. She wrapped her arms around his neck to steady herself.

"Then can we go on a date?" she asked.

"A date?"

"Yes, like when Mommy gets to get all dressed up and you take her to a rest'rant to eat. Nanah can help me pick out my most prettiest dress, and ooh, can we go somewhere that has pesketti?"

Harm laughed at her exuberance as well as her last request. 'Pesketti', or spaghetti as the layman might say, had been Sophie's favorite food since before she even had any teeth. "I'd be honored to take you out on a date, Miss Sophie," he puckered up and accepted her slightly sticky, grape popsicle flavored kiss.

Stepping off the elevator, Sophie slid from her father's arms and grabbed his hand, pulling him forward impatiently.

"Hey, wait up, squirt," he chuckled, "you don't even know where you're going!"

Hand in hand, father and daughter navigated the quiet hallways together. After three wrong turns Sophie thought they'd never find it. Then she felt her dad tug on her arm gently. When she looked up, he nodded his head toward the door on his other side.

Letting go of his hand, she ran to the door, her sandals clacking on the linoleum as she entered the room.

"Hey BooBoo!" Mac greeted as Sophie hopped up onto the bed and threw arms around her mother's neck.

"Hey beautiful," Harm murmured, leaning over the top of Sophie's head and kissing his wife.

"Hey Sailor," she replied, her lips curving up when the kiss ended. "You get a hold of Bud and Harriet?"

"Harriet's already making travel arrangements," he chuckled. "Mom and Frank will be here later. They wanted to give someone," he pointed down to where Sophie was still clinging to Mac's neck, "time to get acquainted with the baby."

Mac nodded knowingly.

"Mommy, do you like my hair? Nanah fixed it special for today." Pulling back from her mother's embrace, Sophie began tugging on her curls once again.

"I love it, baby!" Mac held her back so she could see the little girl's outfit. "And where did you get that shirt?" She looked up at her husband delightedly.

"Give Mommy the present for the new baby," he encouraged the little girl, handing her a small gift bag.

With great pride and care, Sophie presented the gift to her mother. Mac carefully removed the tissue paper and reached into the bag, pulling out a t-shirt, purple like Sophie's, but much, much smaller. When Mac unfolded it, she saw the white block letters proclaiming, "I'M THE LITTLE SISTER".

"Me and Nanah…"

"Nanah and I," her mom corrected automatically, holding the shirt out in front of her by the shoulder seams and smiling widely.

"Nanah and I went shoppin' today and she got 'em for us." Sophie wiggled and grunted until she had twisted one leg around, her foot now between herself and her mom. "An' I got these new shoes too!" Sophie was the only four-year old in existence who could have more fun in a shoe outlet than a toy store.

"Those are wonderful, baby," Mac gushed, slipping her hands under Sophie's arms and pulling her forward into a tight hug, "I missed you Boo."

"I missed you too, Mommy. Pawpaw read me my bedtime book, but he doesn't know the man in the moon song."

Her mommy squeezed her tighter for a minute before pulling back. "How about tonight at bedtime, you have Daddy call me here, and I can sing it to you over the phone."

Sophie's face lit up, but before she could respond, she noticed her daddy standing next to a little plastic bed on wheels. In his arms was a bundle of blankets. "Is that her?"

Her father looked over with a grin. "Do you want to meet your new sister?" He started toward the bed, lowering his head down to the tiny little girl in his arms as he walked. "How about you? Would you like to meet your big sister? She's been awfully patient, waiting for you."

Sophie backed up some, kneeling on the bed next to her mother's hip. She leaned forward as the bundle of blankets was transferred from her daddy's arms to her mommy's. Mac pulled the extra layers back until all that was left was a wiggling, flushed newborn. She was dressed in a pink gown with a matching knit cap that couldn't quite contain her dark tuffs of hair.

Sophie wrinkled her nose up a little.

"She's funny lookin'." She looked up at her parents and asked very seriously, "Are you sure she's done?" She wasn't sure why her mom started laughing; she thought it was a valid concern. But Sophie loved her mommy's laugh; it made her feel warm and fuzzy inside. So she didn't mind.

After assuring her oldest that the baby was completely and totally done- in fact, the newest addition to the Rabb family had come four days late- Mac asked, "Would you like to hold her?"

Sophie nodded eagerly. While she situated herself next to her mother, Mac gently swaddled the infant in a receiving blanket. Then Harm moved the baby from Mac's arms to Sophie's. He showed her how to support the head while Mac wrapped her arm around both girls, tucking them into her side securely. Then he backed up, feeling a powerful surge of pride at the beautiful picture his three girls made.

Seating himself on Mac's other side with his hip pressed to her thigh, he stretched his arm across her legs and braced himself on her bed with his hand. Once everyone was settled, he made the introductions.

"Sophia Rachele Rabb, meet your sister Evelyn Francesca Rabb. Evie," he continued, reaching out to stroke the baby's soft fingers, "this is your big sister Sophie."

"Like Mama Francesca?" the little girl asked curiously, looking up from her new little sister. Her Mama Francesca and her Grandpa AJ were in heaven now, but she had pictures of them in her room. She was in the pictures too, but she was a very, very little baby, just like Evie.

"Yup," her mommy confirmed, "Daddy and I decided Evie should share a middle name with someone who was important to our lives. And your Mama Francesca gave us you," Mac tapped the girl's nose with the tip if her finger. "What could be more important than that?"

Sophie looked up at her mom, a beaming smile on her face. When she looked back down, little Evie had woken up and was staring intently at her big sister through clear hazel eyes. Sophie watched her for a long minute before looking back up at her parents. "I guess she is kinda pretty. Can I help take care of her?"

Mac's smile split her face as she traded glances with Harm. "I can't think of a better helper."

Sophie began rocking back and forth slowly, humming off key in her own, childish way.

"I love you, Harm," he looked up from his children to see Mac's gaze fixed on him.

"I love you too, Mac," he leaned forward to give her another soft, lingering kiss.

When they separated, Harm sat back and they continued to watch the girls. Recognizing the song Sophie was humming, Mac waited until the tune started over before she began singing.

_"I once loved a sailor, once a sailor loved me..."  
_  
The End

COME TAKE A TRIP IN MY AIRSHIP : Natalie Merchant  
(George Evans & Honeyboy Shields)

I once loved a sailor  
once, a sailor loved me  
but he was not a sailor  
who sailed on the wide blue sea  
he sailed in an airship  
sailed like a bird on the wing  
and every evening at midnight  
he would come to my window and sing…

come take a trip in my airship  
come sail away to the stars  
we'll travel to Venus  
we'll sail away to Mars  
no one will see while we're kissing  
no one will know as we swoon  
so come take a trip in my airship  
and we'll visit the man in the moon

one night while sailing away from the crowds  
we passed by the milky white way  
while idly drifting and watching the clouds  
he asked if I'd name the day  
just by the dipper I gave him my heart  
and the sun shone on our honeymoon  
we swore to each other we never would part  
and we'd teach all the babies this tune…

come take a trip in my airship  
come sail away to the stars  
we'll travel to Venus  
we'll sail away to Mars  
no one will see while we're kissing  
no one will know as we swoon  
so come take a trip in my airship  
and we'll visit the man in the moon


End file.
